From the interview with Valerie O. Koschnick of Centralia, WA on February 12, 2004 conducted by phone from the Fort Worden History Center by Patience Rogge. Ms. Koschnick is the widow of Robert Koschnick, the Superintendent of the Fort Worden Juvenile Diagnostic and Treatment Center when it closed in 1971. She was Supervisor of the Social Service Department of the Center, and the family lived in the Commanding Officer’s Quarters. Here she discusses the final days:

“It was very stressful… My husband was very, very busy as superintendent trying to find or help the other staff members to get a job and make sure all the children (the residents) had places to go which were suitable for them. …We were out of housing and jobs and it was very stressful. Our children—one of them was in junior high and the other one was in high school—very much did not want to leave and were very upset to say good-bye to all our friends there.”