Committed

This is The Utah State Hospital in Provo, Utah. When erected, it
was called the Territorial Insane Asylum. This building no longer stands,
having been demolished in 1981.

In my family history research, I have encountered no less than six individuals who were considered mentally ill or in need of confinement due to their unruly behavior. The one consistent factor in each of these cases was gender--so far I have only found women whose situations warranted family members signing them over to state care. Women who would not behave as expected, would not sit quietly at home.

Out of respect for more traditionally discreet, living relatives, I will refrain from pointedly identifying any of these women in this post. (Personally, after reading the files I have so far accessed, I feel only empathy for any past patient of a state-operated mental health facility.)

Of the six women mentioned here, four were patients at this hospital. Their commitments began as early as 1911; one benefited from medication and was released to her family, with three passing away still under supervised care, the last two in 1968. They were all committed by family
members who believed it was in the best interest of their daughter, sister, or wife to be treated by psychiatric professionals. Another young woman was only briefly signed into a slightly different institution--a school for hard-to-handle girls. Luckily for her, no one diagnosed her with any disorders that would put her on a mental ward, and she was released back to her family. The
sixth woman, was never placed in institutionalized custody, owing to a trust left by her father to be paid to whichever of her siblings housed and cared for his "beloved Margaret" .

Even today, science has only a modicum of understanding of the human brain and psyche. The root causes of depression and mental illness elude doctors, still. Medication, while widely available, is far from perfect. Movies have provided horrifying images of early insane asylums and the types of "remedies" given to patients. Salacious and extreme, many of these portrayals are rooted in fact.

What behaviors led to their commitment ? One girl suffered brain damage from a bout of spinal meningitis, three were diagnosed with schizophrenia--but today only one of those would fit the parameters of that illness. One misdiagnosis would now be known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (complicated by morphine addiction and alcoholism); the second case of misdiagnosed schizophrenia looks for all the world to be a case of heavy metal toxicity. The lucky girl with the trust fund predates much record keeping, so the possible cause for her developmental limitations escapes modern theorizing.

Over the years, psychiatry has been a forum for innovators, reformers, charlatans, opportunists, humanitarians, eugenicists, and experimenters. Influenced by social mores, religious beliefs, political platforms, and national budgets-public psychiatric care has fluctuated from custodial to moral treatment to genetic engineering to recreation therapy to simple sedation. More than one man found fame as a "medical genius" promoting worthless and harmful techniques backed by bunk research.

In the time periods experienced my family members listed here, the predominant accepted methods of treatment included electroconvulsive shock therapy (ECT), insulin shock therapy(IST), hydrotherapy, and the administration of large doses of phenobarbital and thorazine.

ECT is fairly well-known and still considered useful in extreme cases of depression and catatonia. ECT evolved out of another treatment in which patients were administered seizure-inducing compounds. It was thought of as a sort of "restart" to brain energy . Eventually it was discovered
that the same, violent, bone-breaking convulsions could be produced much cheaper with electric current. At some point before 1960, anesthesia was introduced to the ECT process, and doctors took to calling ECT a "sleep inducing" process. Although anesthetized, the patients body would still arch and flail, the patient awakening to unexplained pain. ECT also causes permanent memory loss.

Insulin Shock Therapy consisted of patients being injected with large doses of insulin to induce coma. Five or six comas per week was the standard. Insulin draws sugar from the blood into muscles. The large doses of insulin stripped the blood of so much sugar that brain cells were starved of fuel, and would shut down. After 20 minutes to two hours of this near-death state, patients were drawn back to consciousness by administration of glucose. This treatment was accompanied by force-feeding through a stomach tube because the patients would invariably be unable to maintain healthy eating habits.

Hydrotherapy ranged from what could be considered a soothing soak in a warm tub to prolonged confinement in a tub of either hot or cold water-sometimes for days. Ice caps were made to facilitate long term application of ice to the head. Other variations included high force water jets
directed at the patient. This was described as "particularly rousing" for depressed patients. The most hated water "therapy" was the wet pack. A cold or hot water-soaked sheet would be tightly wrapped around the patient, with a wool blanket added around the wet sheet. Strapped to their
beds, they would be left there for hours or days.

Thorazine and phenobarbital figure prominently on the drug charts included with these files. They are both still used today, although phenobarbital is (and was) primarily meant to treat epilepsy, not schizophrenia. Thorazine today is administered in drastically smaller doses
than in the time referenced here. A seriously ill patient today would receive 100mg every 6 hours. Three of the women in my family were given 600mg-800mg daily, which at the time was nowhere near the highest doses some patients received of 5,000 mg. When the use of Thorazine was under review by a US Senate subcommittee, former patients testified to their lives in a "fog"
confined to a "drug prison", and being made into "an invalid, all in the name of mental health". The woman who likely was suffering from heavy metal toxicity was subjected to 209 ECT treatments, 47 Insulin Shock Treatments, and years of Thorazine dosage. Notes in the Nurse's Comments column of her daily charts show that each time she became "difficult", "argumentative", or "loud" she was sent for an electroshock treatment, always returning with "good recovery". Or just plain silent. I found these numbers listing her treatments included in a letter from one physician inquiring as to whether he could restart ECT treatment. Mercifully, the treatments were not resumed. When admitted, she denied hearing voices and doctors noted certain components of schizophrenia were not evident. AFTER years of "therapy" she spoke of hearing Japanese voices singing in her head. The constant strain on her body led to her death at age 39. The death certificate read "Cause of Death : Not determined-Presumably natural".

The notes from conversations with the woman showing signs of PTSD and opiate addiction illustrate the tenderness she still held for her mother and regret she had never had children of her own. She also died under supervised care-on home release.

As mental health historians point out, treatments were "the best care available at the time". A blessing in disguise, Utah's delay in erecting a building specifically for lobotomies resulted in none ever being performed at the hospital, as the procedure fell out of favor before the
facility was completed. However, mandatory sterilization was fairly common up to 1960. With the changing attitudes regarding therapy, a bowling alley and swimming pool were installed and later removed to make room for more beds. Patients went to dances and ward parties. Families came to visit, and patients went home for trial visits and work release.

Personally, in reading the history of mental health care, I am struck by the varying levels of compassion (or lack thereof) that has affected the course of psychiatry. The ability of some individuals to persevere. The disconnect some people are able to enact in order to separate themselves from other human beings and set in motion inhumane policies. I could go on and on
with my views of the social roots and implications of what is in these files.

But I'll just finish by quoting Bob Dylan :

"She aches just like a woman, but she breaks just like a little girl. "

Keeping and Sharing

This is Gloria. She is no relation to me. I met Gloria years ago, she has since passed away. When I met her, Gloria lived with her adult daughter, two great-grandchildren, a pug, and many cats. Siamese were her favorite. She was a unique person-and I mean that as a compliment.

Besides the menagerie, Gloria stockpiled things like VCR tapes-home video of her pets, she and her daughter compiled stacks of scrapbooks made from magazine pictures, and being legally blind (and maybe not so inclined), the house at times was a mess. Today, she would be called a hoarder.

At the time I met Gloria, I was married to a younger generation cousin of hers. Gloria was 78, so I thought she would be a good source of genealogical information. As we talked, Gloria showed me a treasure trove of old photographs, saved by her mother, Bessie. There were so many. It was like winning the lottery.

At that time I was working at a printing & design company. Gloria allowed me to take her photos and scan and save them to disks. There were many other people to whom these images were important. Eventually, I returned Gloria's photos and papers to her. First that job, then my marriage ended, and I moved out of the area. Months later, I went to visit Gloria. In my absence, some well-meaning people had come to Gloria offering help. They cleaned her house for her. Somehow, they had thrown away her photos and all of the genealogical papers with them. Although I was no longer tied to Gloria's family, I was devastated. I felt guilty-as if I had left the photographs unprotected. All those years of Gloria and her mother preserving their history were now gone.

Now having moved VERY far away from that part of the United States, I came across my original disks of Gloria's photos. I posted most of them on facebook. A friend of mine, who knew I was divorced and no longer "related" to the people in this family, wondered in a comment why I had kept the photos. Well, besides still claiming my two nieces from that dissolved marriage, I could not part with the pictures and their stories.

Recently, I was contacted by Gloria's granddaughter, Barbara. Through mutual facebook friends, she had seen the photographs I posted. She had never known digital copies had been made. I had passed around copies of the disks when I made them--but I didn't really know Barbara then, and so she never got a copy. Barbara had grown up in Gloria's home. After Gloria's passing, when the photos were nowhere to be found, she had thought they were lost forever. To be able to give back these treasures was wonderful for me.

When a grandmother of mine passed away, it took three years to sift through the contents of her home. Having survived the depression as a teenager providing for her younger siblings, she later found it impossible to throw things away. But among the fossilized food storage and enough chairs to seat a Sunday School, were amazing discoveries. Letters, diaries, artwork, handkerchiefs hand stitched generations ago, and of course photographs.

Just this week, someone shared with me some family photos I had never seen. I am grateful and supremely excited since she has told me there will be more to see.

So what's in that box under YOUR grandmother's bed ?

Great Expectations

With the recent proliferation of Genealogy-as-Television-Entertainment, I have been interested to watch other people being introduced to both their ancestors and The Search. Celebrities and "regular" people, alike.

Having been introduced to genealogy at an early age, and growing up in a community where Family History is a cultural pastime, I used to think everyone knew who their grandparents were, and their great-grandparents, too. When I moved out into the rest of the world, I found this wasn't the case. I have helped a few friends along the way to get started on their Family History.

Many people hope to find royalty or other famous historical figures on their tree. Others express a preference over which side of their family they wish to research. Both in "real life" and on TV, I have heard people say "I'm not interested in that side--they're no good".

I watched a storyteller named Chimamanda Adichie in a youtube video titled "The danger of The Single Story" (very worthwhile-just google the title). She illustrates how we tend to categorize people by just a narrow set of facts, and end up missing out on opportunities to learn from or be enriched by those around us.

Should I be mortified to find a photo of my 3x great-grandfather in prison stripes ? Should I be ashamed of the wild women on my mother's side ? Should I wave like a banner my Mayflower ancestor ? If my grandmother survived a winter in the depression by living in a grain silo, does that mean she never went to a dance with a boy ?

These facts about my ancestors are not their whole story.

One of the men in this picture was indeed my great-great-great-gandfather. He was imprisoned when the United States passed the law making polygamy illegal, and he would not denounce the wives he had already married. He also earned the respect of local Native American leaders in both frontier towns he settled. He composed poetry and hymns, though he could not spell, and could barely write.

The wild women on my mother's side ? The same ones who sent money home to their mother to buy a house? Or gave their father a car ? The one who drove back and forth every weekend for nearly a year to bring her hospitalized sister home to be with the family ? Sure they did things that shock me, but I proudly identify with their headstrong spirits.

That Mayflower pilgrim ? If he truly is my ancestor, do I chalk him as one of the "good guys" ?

I love getting to know my ancestors. Some are easily categorized as heroes, others need careful handling, but they are all real people to me. I find something in all of them that I would like to find in myself.

Mothers

Ten days before this past Mother's Day, my own mother died. It was not entirely unexpected, but it could have been years before it happened.

This picture tells more about my mother's life than any of the ones I used for her memorial collage.

In a spotless room, she is sitting as she was posed in a clean, white dress. Behind her, backed into a corner, with a most unhappy look on her face, is her mother.

The photographer was doubtless her stepfather. A hard-drinking, mean-spirited, Korean War veteran, he put them there in the corner.

My mother was raised by these two people, molded by their misbehavior, an injured bystander in their mutual betrayals, and the innocent victim of their unhappiness.

An only child, she had the best clothes, even her own credit card in High School-unusual I am sure in the mid Sixties. But alone, she had no one to defend her. No one to help bear the weight of the whispers of a small town.

She escaped, searching for peace. It is hard to find something you have never known. I know she will find it now.

Focus

I am in Sacramento. I will be here for two weeks, the sole purpose of this trip being research. Leaving a cold, grey landscape behind as I drove through Donner Pass and into California, the energy of Spring was everywhere. The thought crossed my mind, that I could find an excuse to drive this way each March. Just when I've had about all I can take of the dormancy of Winter, to drive into greenery and blooming trees . . .

Daydreaming of all the beautiful places to visit nearby, I reminded myself why I came here. Sacramento is an old place, with a multitude of repositories and a robust pride in their history. I came loaded for bear. I packed my laptop, my binders of documents, my thumb-drives, my external storage drive, digital camera, and a rainbow of pens, pencils, and highlighters.

Day One of research, I drove downtown and paid $20 to park for the day. Ouch. All the documents I could pay for with $20 ! So for my second day, I googled the bus route, gathered my gear, and schlepped out into the rain and rode the bus. The Center for Sacramento History was only a little ways from the bus stop, so I barely got wet. As the Center closed, up, I retrieved my bags of technology from my locker. Somehow I lost my camera.

Somewhere on my route, I must have put it down. No amount of mental retracing of my steps served to bring about any recollection of where on earth I left it. It was just plain gone. Now, I am not normally very hung up on THINGS. There were hardly any pictures on the camera, and while certainly very handy, a digital camera is not essential to my research. Still, I was fuming.

Today, as I prepped for another visit to the same repository, I was still perturbed, but tried to get a grip. Requesting an assortment of original Sacramento Police Records, I was gifted with a wheeled cart full of ledgers-crumbling and held together by straps tied around them like Christmas ribbon. Sergeants Daily Logs, Mugshot Indexes, Evidence Registers, Seized Property Reports, and Insane Commitment Orders. I love this stuff. I was wading through it all, and came to the Seized Property Reports.

I was hoping for lists of criminal contraband, guns, knives and the like. What was in the folder was receipt after receipt for cameras. There were hundreds of them. Issued in 1941, all the people named on these papers were of Japanese descent. In the War Department's efforts to keep our country safe from communism, they had felt it necessary to seize all the cameras from our Japanese citizenry before sending them into the desert to live and die in tarpaper shacks.

Another folder held copies of letters sent to those who later tried to recover their possessions. Barely more than a form letter, each person was told that their cameras had been stored in such a way as to make their return impossible.

Thomas David Evans and his wooden leg

This is Thomas David Evans' wooden leg. It is on display at The Pioneer Memorial Museum in Salt Lake City, UT.

Thomas David was my 3xgreat-grandfather. He was born in Wales. He tells the story of how he lost his leg in a journal archived in the Brigham Young University Library :

"At the age of 7 years, I went to work in the Iron Works. The first work I did was lifting the doors for the puddlers, in a forge where there were 2,000 workmen employed. The lifting had to be done regularly, for an iron ball like fire to pass through in that hot state, to make [train]rails. It was a very responsible position for a man, but such was child labor at that time in Europe. I continued taking the courses one after another until I completed the trade or profession of 'iron roller'. A remarkable accident happened to me when I was about nine years old. My mother sent me to Sabbath School one Sabbath morning, but as I was confined to the shop mine through the week, I concluded to play truant. I went off to play, and the wheels of a [coal] dram went over my leg just below the knee. I had good doctors, but they had to amputate my leg, and I have worn a wooden one ever since. "

Can you imagine the cautionary tale that sprang from this incident ? How many of his young children skipped church, do you think ?

At the age of 16, Thomas left home to serve six-year proselyting mission throughout the Welsh countryside. When he returned, he married and prepared to emigrate to the United States.

After disembarking in Boston, he and his new bride rode a train to Iowa, where the real journey began. They were part of the pioneer migration that used handcarts rather than wagons to cross the plains. To save money, only a limited number of wagons were sent with each company, to carry the heavier necessities of frontier travel and tools to establish settlements at the end of the journey. The pioneers themselves were alloted one handcart per 5 people.

Handcarts are similar to rickshaws, without a seat, of course, as there were no riders. What small space available in the cart was filled with about 500 lbs of flour, bacon, salt, and coffee-each family's share of the Company load. A family's total personal belongings were limited to 17 lbs. per cart. Everything else was left behind.

Thomas walked most of the way to Utah, some 1300 miles of dirt trails, rock ridges, and rivers to cross. An average day's travel would cover 15 miles. The entire trip was supposed to be completed in 90 days. Finally at some point, he could no longer stand the pain of his bleeding and infected knee, and gave up on the side of the trail. The company pushed on, and when camped for the night, realizing they had lost a member, sent men back for him. At that point, Thomas was put in charge of one of the supply wagons, and was therefore allowed to ride the rest of the way.

I am one of many, many descendants of pioneers such as Thomas and Priscilla. Many pioneers did not finish the trek, and many others endured far worse things than my ancestors. Upon arrival in the Utah Valley, their trials did not end. Nor were many of their circumstances inherently different than those of other people throughout the Western frontier at that time.

But genetically speaking, it gives me strength to know that my body is constructed and organized by the same DNA as these people. Things I see as impossible, pale in comparision to what they pushed through. I still whine, and wish for even more comfort, but every now and then, I remember and appreciate the ease of my existence.

By Way of Introduction . . .

This is my great-grandmother. Her name is Blanche. She was a secret. I have been doing genealogy for my entire adult life, and only within the past year did I become aware of her connection to me.

If you've ever done genealogy, a discovery such as a secret grandmother is pretty thrilling.

Blanche's story comes with all the trappings of a pulp mystery novel-guns, gangsters, and murder. I remember after a volley of emails between myself and the Center for Sacramento History, how excited I was to be told that yes, they did have on file, a 1936 mugshot of my ancestor. For a fee, they would send it to me. The very helpful research librarian had included in her emails a transcription of the arrest, but not the photo, of course. Research libraries survive on things like this. I mailed the check, and waited. The projected date of delivery came and went with no disk. Eventually, another was sent, and this time arrived as scheduled.

In all my anticipation and excitement, I was unprepared for the humanity of this picture. I had forgotten that she was a young girl, and forgotten the kind of reality that exists in criminal and correctional environments. I had gotten caught up in The Story of it all.

Then here was this tearful, frightened woman facing me, looking very much like her daughter, the grandmother I HAD known. It was a heart-dropping landing.

Her story is still unfolding, and very worth telling, but that will hopefully come later.


Myself, I spend as much time as possible in Archives, Libraries, and older relatives' living rooms. It's a seductive thing, travelling to the time of these people who call from the census, xeroxed letters, parish registers, and muster rolls.

My intention with this blog is to present one picture with a short background, hopefully every week or so. I hope it will be interesting to my family, friends and other genealogists.