Teaser Tell All

Howdy!   Well yesterday was REALLY interesting – and REALLY embarrassing all rolled into one.    It was interesting because we didn’t think ANYONE would guess the Teaser but WHAMMO, almost  the instant we went live, we had our First Commenter AND our First Right Guesser…………..

Our First Commenter was – EASY!!!!

Easy Wins Again!

Our First Right Guesser was – LEO!!!!

Woo Hoo Leo!

Before I tell you the EMBARRASSING part, here’s the photos from yesterday one more time!

Big place huh?

Main entrance a short while later after it was abandoned.

Main entrance before it was abandoned.

My Guest Teaser was Shoko (and her Mom Miss Jean) from Canadian Cats and they submitted a photo of Riverside Mental Hospital in Coquitlam, British Columbia!   Miss Jean sent me some fascinating information about this building and its’ history.   First your badge – then the history!

Thanks Shoko and Miss Jean!!

Riverview Hospital was originally called Essondale and the name sent shivers up the spine of most people in BC.  Essondale was a provincially run mental institution.  Originally, there was 1,000 acres belonging to the psychiatric hospital but over the years this became 422 acres.  The institution and grounds are huge.  They opened around 1913.  It was the place to shove the unwanted and embarrassing.  There was also housing there for juvenile delinquents, the aged…dangerous aged folk and then there was Colony Farms.  Colony Farm produced first rate crops that were used throughout the facility.  They also raised animals such as cows and pigs.   My cousin was a social worker at Riverview.  She was very dedicated but died in her early 30’s.  There were several horror stories about shock treatments and there was, “The Calming Room.” When a patient was acting up, they were taken to the calming room until they became placid.  Sometimes this took a few days.  Many strange things were said to happen in the calming room.   (I then asked Jean when the place had closed down)    You asked when it closed…It didn’t close all at once….Colony Farms started to shut down in 1983 and by 1989, Colony Farms was closed and became a wildlife park.  Riverview was officially closed in 2012 but by the looks of the main buildings….they had been abandoned for years.  Juvenile Delinquent quarters were slowly phased out in the mid nineteen hundreds.  Some of the less violent aged were mixed with the psychiatric patients.  This hospital also did a lot of good for psychiatric patients….the less damaged.  I won’t go into that as I could talk for a long time about this facility.

THANKS SHOKO AND JEAN!   I also discovered in reading about this place that it was thought to be quite haunted……….wouldn’t surprise me after all that went on there!

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Now the embarrassing part………………. the comments were coming in FAST yesterday with guesses on the Teaser and when Mom was checking them to see if anyone was right, she did NOT go back far enough in the comments to see that in fact our friend Leo had been first!   Mom thought there was a tie for first between Miss Sue of KatsRUs, and Miss Melissa of Oliver and Calvin.   That’s right – Mom (and I) “blew it big time”…………………….so because we made a gigantic boo boo – we are awarding Miss Sue and Miss Melissa this  BRAND NEW BADGE!!

Now,  I had a bunch of other RIGHT GUESSERS yesterday too – lots of you figured this one out and you all get this!

Were you one of the few who were CLUELESS?   No idea?  Or guessed WRONG?  You still get something for your effort!

So – hopefully I’m forgiven by Miss Sue and Miss Melissa and hopefully Leo is happy to be BACK ON TOP in the Teaser guessing department…………..!!!   WOO HOOOOOO!!!!!!

Hugs, Sammy the Teaser Dude