“When you’re in the handicapped program it’s kind of like a babysitting program, and I just stood still. I didn’t learn anything. They didn’t teach me to read or anything.”

In the fifth grade, Patterson was finally removed from the program, only to start back in first grade. He graduated from high school in 1992 when he was 23, and went on to graduate from college. Patterson says he doesn’t feel any anger toward what happened to him, chalking it up to a different time period. Instead, he says he is thankful for all the progress he made against his doctors’ beliefs.

“The doctors misdiagnosed me,” Patterson says. “They told my parents I’d never be able to see, never be able to talk, never be able to walk. And I’m thankful I can do that kind of thing.”

Patterson has lived in Haydenville all his life, and lives in the house he grew up in.

Like Harkless, Patterson is optimistic about the future of Haydenville and sees the formation of the Haydenville Preservation Committee as a turning point for the town. Patterson joined the committee two years ago. The committee has overseen several projects. The old school was recently torn down, and this spring, a playground is slated for construction in its place. An old canal lock on the north end of town has been cleaned out and the canal's history addressed with a sign. In the summer of 2008, one of the original company homes was converted into a museum to house
photographs and memorabilia about Haydenville.

One of the museum and preservation committee’s founding members, Nyla Vollmer, explains her excitement at receiving new items for the museum as she pulls out a photo album from a man who grew up in Haydenville. He lent the album to Vollmer so that the photographs could be scanned and added to the museum’s collection.

“This is a treasure to me,” Vollmer says. “You see all these houses as they were 50 years ago.”

If Vollmer sounds nostalgic, it’s because she is.

“People that lived here were expected to work
hard, but they were taken care of. They had houses that were good for the time,
they had a repairman,” Vollmer says. “Now we’ve got lots of junk cars
[in Haydenville]. We can’t get anyone to do anything about moving them
off the street.”

Vollmer concedes that houses have improved since she moved to the town
(Vollmer is not originally from Haydenville, but nearby Union Furnace; her
husband grew up in Haydenville).

Vollmer and her husband fixed up four of the houses. They live in one and rent
three out. While some Haydenville residents complain that renters care less for
rented property than they would if they owned the homes they live in, Vollmer
said she keeps responsible renters and checks in on them often. Indeed,
she can see the three properties, sitting in a row, from her back porch window.

Yet Vollmer complains about the overall appearance of Haydenville.

“We’ve [still] got some people that have no pride apparently,” Vollmer says.
“Their places are run down and trashy. You can be poor without being totally
trashy. It’s an eyesore, it takes down everyone’s property value.”

In the middle of Vollmer’s complaints, she admits that some of the problems
that residents of Haydenville face do not fall on the homeowners.

“A lot of the houses are starting to show their age. I don’t think they were built with any indication that they were still going to be here 100 and some odd years later,” she says. “Most company towns are totally gone with very few houses left. But in Haydenville, most of the houses are still here [and] are really beginning to show desperate need.”