An active camp program brought some forty-two different speakers during 1944 and into February of 1945. 

Music organizations within the camp presented ten programs in the community during early 1944.  The Ambassador Quartet and the Vesper Quartet sang together in a Male Octet.  G. Merrill Swartley wrote the following.

Selective Service had honored our request that the Grottoes quartet be allowed to transfer intact to Howard and we continued with our singing activities, in camp services and each week on a local radio station program.  A few of us sang in the choir of the oldest Congregational Church in nearby Providence.  I also attended the evening classes at Providence Bible Institute.  (“Detour . . . Main Highway”: Our CPS Stories p 57)

A foreign relief training unit opened at Howard in January, 1944, a program that attracted some additional COs to the hospital.  The relief training scheduling patterns differed in that trainees worked eight hours a day and devoted an additional four hours to study for relief work.  This arrangement created friction with unit staff at the hospital, partly due to poor communication about the differing nature of the relief training work and study.  The relief training unit was removed in February 1945 after regular hospital staff complained about the shorter working hours and too much time in recreational activity.

During the summer of 1944, a summer service unit of twenty-seven women led by Edna Ramseyer worked in the wards and attended relief training classes.  In 1946, a second summer service unit of fifteen women and three men joined forces with the CPS men in work and study under the leadership of Mrs. Frances Smith of Messiah Bible College.  All three of the historic peace churches operated relief training schools at hospitals for CPS men and interested women.

Ruth Niesley Zercher, one of the wives who worked as a ward attendant, learned from her experiences with Jewish residents and a Jewish doctor.  She recalled her surprise when the doctor chastised her for calling a patient by her first name, and directed her to address the woman as “Mrs”.  As Goossen reports, one of Zercher’s Jewish colleagues explained the insistence on formality and respect as related to the doctor’s outrage not only with Nazi injustices, but also American anti-Semitism.  For Zercher, who had little knowledge of the experience of European Jews at that time, “the doctor’s passion had a profound impact.” (p. 13)

The men organized the Committee for Patient Care in 1945.  This group contacted agencies and organizations in Rhode Island, the results of which revitalized the Mental Health Society of Rhode Island.

In a 1988 survey, men reflected on their mental health unit experiences.  One man recalled the impact of his service on his later career.

As a result of my experience at Howard State Hospital, I decided that in my postwar career, I would rather work with and for people, rather than other choices that were open to me.  My work there also led me to become a more gentle person in dealing with others. (in Sareyan p. 251)

In the same survey another CO recalled a visit to the hospital some twenty-five years after he had completed his service.

We were disappointed to find some of the staff bitterly complaining about the deterioration of the hospital as a result of its having become a politicized institution.  The welfare of the patients no longer appeared to be a high priority for the institution.  They seemed to be longing for a revival of the climate of caring and compassion which we had tried to instill during our tenure there.  We left with a feeling that we had sown some seed that had turned out to be not entirely unproductive.  (in Sareyan p. 254)

While one of the Howard CPS men recalled the impact of the women who served in CPS units, he offered, “We owe much to our wives who have gladly served by our sides and have taken the same scoffing.  .  .. Their names shall do down in the annals of CPS”. 

Unfortunately, the three historic peace church committees and the National Service Board for Religious Objectors, when preserving records and soliciting materials, comments and criticisms from the CPS men, did not attend as carefully to women’s records.  (Goossen p. 119)  We note and regret this omission evident in this website.

The men published The Sea Gull, which not only included photos for the unit, but also tells the three-year history of Unit 85. The men created a unit newspaper called Newsletter.  By October 1945, unit members had released thirty-nine editions in two volumes.