Their parents operated the heavy equipment The children of Ancora Psychiatric Hospital employees, their childhoods were, for the most part, not that different from those of most South Jersey kids. Photo albums were passed around, every image prompting a story or memory as in, "Oooh, he was my first crush." But within seconds, faces lit up and arms opened wide as the 'Ancora kids' recognized old friends. Most entered the hall tentatively, not quite knowing what to expect. And plenty of BYO's - ice-cold beer in coolers slushy drinks that looked like water ice but packed a wallop even homemade wine from local Ives grapes. There were cases of soft drinks and water.
Fresh fruit platters a pineapple upside down cake layer cakes even a sheet cake for Ancoran Gary Bergh's birthday. The Ancorans, anticipating this reunion day for months, brought enough food and drink for a small army - meatballs in gravy baked ziti a deli platter potato and macaroni salad deviled eggs pretzels and chips for munching. It was one of New Jersey's least known and most unusual residential communities a place where growing up was, according to Leslie Morgan, who came of age there, a time of "innocence and insanity." The children grew up in that isolated Pinelands area with the sprawling hospital and an adjacent state prison unit as their neighbors. Largerĭetails of life in Edgewood, the oval tract of homes erected in 1955 to house workers for the newly-opened psychiatric hospital. Today (below), only muddy ruts of what used to be Park Drive traverse the site of the totally demolished village. Carmel Society hall a few miles from the Ancora site where they all once lived and/or worked, the afternoon focused on theįor four decades, the Edgewood homes community adjacent to Ancora Psychiatric Hospital was a vibrant slice of 1950's Americana (above). Sparked by a Facebook page created by former 'Ancora kid' Kathy Longo of Newtonville, NJ, fellow Ancorans came from as far away as Boston and Arizona to attend the afternoon event that was a nostalgic gabfest of old photo albums, cold beer, homemade wine and hugs all around.
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