Review -- The Lives they Left Behind
Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic by Penney and Stastny
Mar 24, 2009
Willard Psychiatric Center, a large New York mental institution, permanently closed its doors in 1995 after over 125 years of operation. The discovery of the 425 suitcases in an old attic led to a ten-year project in which the authors examined life in that institution by studying the contents of the luggage and trying to piece together histories of their owners.
The authors chose from the numerous suitcases ten patients to profile. By researching their personal histories, they attempted to discover what caused them to be committed to the mental institution, and to piece together their lives before and after being institutionalized.
The Suitcases
Like relics salvaged from the Titanic, the contents of the suitcases humanizes these long-forgotten patients and shed light on them as individuals. The most sparse suitcase contained little more than shoes and shaving equipment. This suitcase belonged to Lawrence Marek, who spent over thirty years as an inmate from 1937 to his death at 90 in 1968. He found a place for himself and meaningful work as a gravedigger for the hospital.
Another suitcase contained fine knitting made by a woman named Ethel Smalls, who took to bed after suffering a nervous breakdown and found herself committed for the duration of her life. An abusive husband and the loss of two children probably caused traumatic stress. With proper treatment, she would have had a good chance of being rehabilitated.
The largest collection of luggage, 18 trunks and boxes containing houswares, dishes, books and papers, came from Margaret Dunleavy, a well-educated nurse who lost her job and lodging after a disruption. They represent all the earthly possessions of a woman in transit with no destination but the mental institution.
The suitcases of two single women who were admitted on the same day in 1939 contained the clothing and pictures of the cultured and well-traveled. Both became destitute during the Depression, when they could not find a job. Irma withdrew from reality and continued to insist she was an Italian princess. Madeline fought for her freedom and gained it -- at age 78.
Treatment and Conditions
Willard operated as a community with the inmates who were able to work holding down some kind of job. The more disruptive and violent were confined to locked wards.
Many of the patients had suffered less than six months of psychotic episodes before lifelong incarceration. Besides mental illness, poverty, language barriers, and emotional distress were factors to their being committed. The most common diagnosis was schizophrenia, or the hearing of voices. This was at the time also called “demenitia praecox.”
Before 1950, very little was offered in the way of treatment but hydroptherapy (soaking in cold or tepid water) and shock treatment, which the inmates feared and dreaded.
Most of the inmates profiled were locked away for life. In the 1960s an effort was made to return many of them to the community, but most of the inmates, especially those of advanced age, had nowhere to go.
In some instances, the authors’ research poses the question of whether some of the inmates really were insane, or victims of circumstance. In the time that they lived, they were placed in the institution where they remained, forgotten and overlooked. The book takes a valuable look at life in such an institution and the state of the care of mental patients of the early to mid 1900 time era by including notes and sessions with the doctors as well as profiles of the individuals. It gives a grim picture of people who spent most of their lives in a mental insitution.
The authors conclude by pointing out that despite many changes, the mental health care system still has much room for improvement.
The Lives they Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic. Penney, Darby and Stusny, Peter. Bellevue Literary Press, 08ISBN # 10-1934130779
Click this link to read a moving account of women who gave their babies up for adoption in the 1950s through the 1970s, The Girls who Went Away
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