Our Founder 
Helen Ross McNabb-Her Dream Lives on Today
As a small child, little Helen Ross had an experience that stirred her lifelong interest in mental health.
Her childhood family home was on a hill about a half mile from the gate of Eastern State Hospital (now Lakeshore Mental Health Institute). Her nanny had a friend who worked in one of the buildings at the hospital, and one day walked down the road to visit and took young Helen with her. The year was 1914. The young girl found herself in a prison-like building, overcrowded and smelly, with faces inside peering out and looking wild, frightened, and unkempt.
A couple of other events helped strengthen her interest in mental illness. When she was eight or nine years old, a patient escaped from Eastern State in the middle of the night and went to their house. They could hear him cracking nuts with a nutcracker in the breakfast room. Her father called the hospital and the patient was taken back. When she was a teenager, she and her mother were asked - as neighbors - to judge the Christmas decorations at the hospital. The impressions she took away from that visit were of dim lighting, drab colors, old clothes and shabby furniture, tiny rooms, boredom, and noticeable quiet. She appreciated the attendants, who worked 12 hours a day for a pitiably small amount of money, yet were caring enough to take great pains to decorate Christmas trees for the patients.
Helen later attended Wellesley College and received her undergraduate degree from the University of Tennessee in psychology and sociology in 1936. Shortly after graduation, she married Richard McNabb, a co-worker at Associated Charities. By 1941 they had three children, and she had earned a master's degree in psychology. While her husband was off to the war, she returned to UT as an instructor and began doing a little social work for the Home Service Department.
With the memories of her youth still vivid and being reinforced daily through her social work and the experiences of GI's returning from the war with emotional problems, she set out to change all that she could.
In the 1940's Mrs. McNabb was busy with her three children and social work. In 1945 she was appointed to head a committee charged with studying the needs of children in Knoxville. The committee felt there was a dire need for a child guidance clinic. She presented her case before the City Council in 1947, knees trembling, and was successful in obtaining a commitment of $8,000 to match a federal grant. Another $1,200 from the Junior League completed the funding picture of $25,200.
The clinic opened in the fall of 1948 as the Mental Health Center in the upstairs of an old house at 1308 West Cumberland Avenue. The U.T. Psychological Services occupied the downstairs area. The clinic was the first of its kind in Tennessee, and while the initial focus was on children, the intent was eventually to provide services to individuals of all ages. The staff numbered three - a full-time psychologist, a secretary who was also a Master's level psychologist and gave psychological tests, and Dr. Louise Noel, who was a part-time psychiatrist recruited by Helen McNabb. Patients were charged according to ability to pay. Needs and caseload rapidly grew, and the clinic moved to a rented house at 2201 Laurel Avenue on July 1, 1949.
In 1951, additional funding was secured from Knox County which enabled the clinic to hire a second psychologist. Again, need for more space and a more central location prompted a move to City Hall Gardens at 301 Locust Street.
The Tennessee Department of Mental Health was established in 1953; the Center took this opportunity to become independent of the City Health Department and was established as an independent non-profit corporation under its own board of directors. The parent board was reorganized, splitting into a board of directors for the Mental Health Center and a board for the newly formed Knox Area Mental Health Association. Dr. John Woliver was named the first full-time Director of the Mental Health Clinic in 1957. Adult services were added in 1955, and the Center became a United Fund (United Way) agency in 1957.
Once again, current needs and future plans dictated the need for more space which was more functional, not to mention more attractive. Planning for a new facility intensified in 1965. The Board of Directors decided that the Center should become a comprehensive mental health center and applied for funds under the Comprehensive Community Mental Health Center Act of 1963. In order to qualify for this federal funding, the Center agreed to add in-patient care, adult day care, 24-hour emergency service, and education and consultation programs to the existing outpatient services. Plans were approved by the federal government in 1967, and a site on the grounds of UT Hospital was leased for 50 years. A campaign to raise matching local building funds was successfully completed, and the new building was occupied in December, 1968. In January, 1969 the new facility was dedicated as the Helen Ross McNabb Center.
She was of notable lineage - her grandfather was C. M. McClung (McClung Library is named after him), and her mother was a descendent of Governor James White. But she wanted to prove herself on her own merit. She spent much of her life caring for and advocating for the sickest and poorest in her community and in her state. To quote her: "That was very important: the feeling that I was part of an ongoing movement, that you can make the world a little bit better. We all need to feel needed, don't you think?"
Throughout the history of the Center, Mrs. McNabb remained involved and supportive until her death in 1997 at age 86. As a volunteer in the early years she administered tests to babies; later she visited in the homes of clients who had not shown up for their treatment. She was a lifetime member of the Board of Directors, and was slowed only by declining physical health.
Today the Helen Ross McNabb Center employs 334 full and part time staff, and is a provider of mental health, substance abuse treatment and social services in Knox and 16 other East Tennessee counties. More than 7, 500 children, adults, and families are expected to receive services through Center programs this year. Helen Ross McNabb's dream lives on in the concern, caring, and empathy demonstrated daily by a dedicated staff.
