A wrong finally put right.

[Ann In the UK]

An interesting news snippet I came across from Seattle.

Mary Gosselin explained the relationship between a 4-year-old named Aidan and a grave at Fort Steilacoom Park. "It's his great great great grandmother, and I'm his grandmother. She was my great grandmother. Can you keep that all straight?"

Gosselin, 79, watched as a gray granite headstone was added to the grave of Mary Beran Hart, until now known only by a stone with the number "1300."

Hart lies in a cemetery with 3,200 other people, all patients of Western State Hospital between 1876 and 1953. She shares the ground with a Civil War veteran and the founder of the city of Des Moines, who also died at the hospital.

Until 2004, the graves were anonymous, due to a state law requiring hospitals to use only numbers on graves of patients buried there. A group of volunteers worked to overturn the law at the state Legislature and has now formed a nonprofit, the Grave Concerns Association, to install headstones with names of all of the people buried at the cemetery for Western State Hospital. The cemetery grounds, across the street from the hospital, are now part of Fort Steilacoom Park in the Lakewood area.

Gosselin said the mystery of her great grandmother was a hole in her family history that had been filled.

"When I was putting together my family information, she was the missing link," she said, and encouraged others to seek out family members whose stories had gone dark because of the stigma of mental illness.

Hart lived in a one-room cabin on a homestead in Auburn. After the birth of her sixth child, she suffered from postpartum depression and was committed in 1884 to Western State Hospital, where she remained until her death in 1914.

Hart's daughter — Gosselin's grandmother, then 7 — had no idea what happened to her mother. The daughter received a postcard in the early 1900s, asking her to come and see her. That's the last the family heard from Hart, Gosselin said.

Gosselin, who lives in Tacoma, said she knew her great grandmother had died here but did not know where she was buried. Five years ago, she and her husband walked across this same field for hours unable to find the plot. Most of the numbered stones had sunk beneath the earth over the decades.

The changing of state law connected the plots to the names.

"We began the project in 2000 to reclaim the cemetery," said Grave Concerns Association Chair Laurel Lemke. "We sold dahlia bulbs, held bake sales." Then the group landed a $5,000 grant, 95 percent of which they say they spent buying headstones.

A crew of volunteers with wheelbarrows and shovels has installed 164 markers in the past two years, plus an additional 31 markers Sunday.

Two weeks ago, Gosselin and her sister came back and, with the help of Lemke, located grave number 1300.

"Just because she had mental problems doesn't mean people should be afraid to look for their relatives," she said.

Volunteers told other stories of individuals that have come to light since the changing of the state law. The city of Des Moines located their founder, John Moore, who died in 1899. Moore became despondent after his wife died and his neighbors were alarmed when they found him throwing furniture out of their house. He was committed to the hospital and buried at the cemetery.

A Civil War veteran who served in the Ohio infantry, Charles Wesley Cooley, had a stroke and was committed afterward to the hospital. The U.S. Army paid for his headstone when they found he was buried here.

"Whenever we mark someone's life, we are showing such a great honoring of each and every life," said Kristi Kreamer, a pastor at Christ Lutheran Church, after Hart's headstone was installed Sunday.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/l ... ry05m.html

[Anne H]

Hi Ann,

It's great news that there is such an organization to right the wrongs of so many years ago, but what a sad society at that time to allow the burial of anyone with only a number as identification...as bad as the nerds who destroy gravestones.

Regards,
Anne H

[joette]

The sad thing is such was the stigma the families at the time were probably glad of the anonimity.
Sad that post-natal depression could lead to such long hospitilisation.
My Great-Grandmother according to my Granny was similarly afflicted around the same time.Luckily her family were able to care for her at home although they did have to "hide the Lysol".

[emanday]

One of my great great aunts got a similarly anonymous burial till her sisters got wind of what had happened. They had visited regularly till about a month before they discovered she had died and been buried, un-named. Attempted visits in the interim had been discouraged as "she was in a bad humour"

The hospital/asylum didn't seem to regard their inmates so much as patients, more like prisoners with no rights.

I've discovered that it took over a year to have her remains moved to the family plot and be properly marked.

[Ann In the UK]

Hi everyone,

It always breaks my heart when anyone is buried without at least being given a small stone with their name on it. I have several in my line who lie in unmarked graves and it makes me feel so sad to think of them. Even the ancient Egyptian's labelled their dead to say who they were and that they were here.

I don't know whether the practice of not marking the burial place of a poor/mentally ill person here just because their family can't afford a stone has stopped now, but if it hasn't it should. Even a simple council or charity donated plate would be preferable to nothing.

Ann

[Anne H]

Ann in UK wrote:

Even a simple council or charity donated plate would be preferable to nothing.

That is an excellent idea, Ann...afterall, what would it cost?

Regards,
Anne H