Julia Spelsburg

"I moved here in the 70s," Julia Spelsburg (then the mayor of Weston) said, to start off our phone conversation about the Weston State Hospital. She volunteered at the hospital, and became friends with a local lady who was a "sweet little thing." They used to go to the Canteen, the building behind the main building, get food, and sit on the lawn, talking.

"It's a treasure," Julia stated. The hospital means a lot to Julia, and she knows how much it means to the community. It's the "Weston identity," she said, "weird identity, but the identity for 150 years." It's so much part of the identity of Weston, that when Julia told her grandma from Upshur County that she was in Weston, her grandma got tears in her eyes, immediately thinking that her granddaughter was in the state hospital.