The Arc disability group founded in NJ celebrates anniversary – Bergen Record

Laura Blossfeld welcomed her first child, Ricky, into the world in 1937. It wasn’t long before the Teaneck mom noticed something amiss.

Ricky developed more slowly than other children. He didn’t mature much past first grade. Throughout his life, his speech was limited to simple syllables like “ba ba ba.” He would sit at home and “pick plaster off the walls,” his sister, Marjorie Blossfeld Cummings, recalled recently.

In prewar America, there were few options for such families: no group homes, no state support, no early intervention programs for parents. They were left to their own devices when it came to navigating the lonely lives of their children.

Doctors knew little. When it came to diagnoses, they offered catchall phrases that ring more like insults in today’s world. Labels like “mongoloid” and “retard” did nothing to dictate care or offer hope. They recommended that Ricky be institutionalized.

He was sent to the Woodbine Developmental Center in Cape May County, where families had little access to their children, said his sister, now 78 and living in Philadelphia.

Laura Blossfeld would eventually pour out her frustrations in a 1946 letter to this paper, which then was called the Bergen Evening Record.

“It is little wonder that so many parents, particularly mothers, become bitter, defiant, defensive, seclusive and evasive, desperately grief-stricken or just plain martyrs when faced with this trying situation,” she wrote.

“The thought uppermost in mind of most parents is: What can I do to help my child?’ The answer is usually: ‘Nothing much.’ “

“There are thousands of children like him everywhere,” she added.

Her plea for support would ignite a movement that helped transform the lives of people with disabilities around the nation. The following year, the Blossfelds and a small band of like-minded North Jersey parents would form the group now known as The Arc. They would go on to secure major legislation and pioneer the use of group homes to provide more nourishing, humane care for people in the community.

The organization, now celebrating its 75th anniversary, has 20 chapters around New Jersey serving 15,000 people with disabilities. Hundreds more chapters have opened around the U.S. since Blossfeld reached out for help.

“The Arc has been an invaluable leader in the disability community,” said Paul Aronsohn, the state’s ombudsman for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. “That’s been true nationally as well as right here in New Jersey.”

Blossfeld’s letter to the editor “served as a clarion call to parents of children with intellectual disabilities,” according to a history compiled by The Arc.

Judge Morris Dobrin of Fair Lawn was the first to reply to Blossfeld. By June 1947, 40 parents gathered at a YMCA in Paterson and dubbed themselves the New Jersey Parents Group for Retarded Children, which became the Association for Retarded Children in 1952 and later simply The Arc. Dobrin was chosen its first chairman and Blossfeld its secretary.

“The original group included Bergen, Passaic and Essex families,” said Kathy Walsh, the current CEO of The Arc of Bergen and Passaic Counties. “They started meeting with families around the state and creating other chapters, because they realized that families all over the state needed this.” In 1948, they opened a school in Ridgewood for their children, who’d been excluded from public education. Blossfeld, who died in 1997, also put out the first issue of the Parent’s Voice, a monthly newsletter read by parents near and far seeking a lifeline. Marjorie Blossfeld Cummings remembers the constant clacking of her mother’s typewriter.

Chapters popped up in other states, and a national Arc was formed in 1950. Four years later, the group lobbied successfully for the Beadleston Act, a state law that created funding for special education. It became the model for federal legislation, though Washington wouldn’t act for another 20 years.

Opinion:My big brother died from COVID-19: Here’s why I will always be thankful for him

Another early leader was Elizabeth Boggs, a mathematician from Essex County who worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II and became a renowned disability advocate. Boggs’ son had disabilities. She and her scientist husband, Fitzhugh Boggs, were founding members of Arc’s Essex County chapter.

Elizabeth Boggs would become one of the national group’s first presidents. She influenced federal legislation and coined the term “developmental disabilities,” said Deborah Spitalnik, executive director of The Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities, the New Brunswick research facility named in her honor.

In 1971, The Arc opened New Jersey’s first group home, in Paterson, offering an alternative to mental hospitals that were often little more than warehouses for people with disabilities. A second home followed in Hackensack. Both were made possible by legislation championed by the organization to allow group homes in residential areas.

“After that legislation, in the 1980s, you see the community grow and the development of group homes and the de-institutionalization,” said Walsh. “That really changed things in New Jersey.”

The group is still changing lives today. Diane Stolfo, who has Down syndrome, was enrolled in an Arc early intervention program in Bergenfield when she was 3. Now 40, she lives in her own apartment with occasional help with cooking, transportation and food shopping from Arc personnel.

“I have been a part of the Arc family for 40 years,” she said. “Because of their support, I am able to be here today to share my experiences as an independent self-advocate.”

Stolfo met her boyfriend through that early intervention program years ago, after her parents and his formed a bond at support groups. She’s held three jobs, including one helping customers and stocking shelves at The Gap that lasted 22 years. She wants to get married, although first she wants to see the federal government change its rules so that the union wouldn’t mean a reduction in her benefits. “Just like those founders, we are going to change that by passing new laws,” she said. “Things have come a long way since those parents founded The Arc and began expanding opportunities. Today, people who are differently abled can look back and think how different life would have been if those founders had not started the movement back in 1947.”

Gene Myers covers disability and mental health for NorthJersey.com and the USA TODAY Network. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: myers@northjersey.com; Twitter: @myersgene