Utah hospital looks to memorialize patients forgotten decades ago


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PROVO — City cemetery blocks 5, 7 and 8 look empty, but the reality is that they're filled with the forgotten stories of hundreds of patients once committed to the care of the Utah State Hospital, formerly the Utah Territorial Insane Asylum.

A few scattered grave markers have been added over the years by families finding lost records, but the majority of the closely set graves remain unmarked and largely forgotten.

"If you were to mark every one, it would be a sea of concrete," said Janina Chilton, a historian at the state hospital, who, over the years, has researched the names and identified the graves of more than 474 former patients who are buried at the Provo City Cemetery.

"Spending time in their records, you kind of get to know who these people were and what an incredibly difficult time they had living here," she said.

The hospital would like to commemorate those lives that ended in seclusion, but they'll need help from the public to do so.

"These were individuals who had families and aspirations and desires in life, and they lost all that, and they were not only lost in life but were lost in death," said Utah State Hospital Superintendent Dallas Earnshaw. "This is an opportunity for them to be remembered."

Unlike many of the nation's older asylums, the Utah State Hospital doesn't have an adjacent cemetery or burial property, which caused Chilton to wonder where Utah's mentally ill patients ended up so long ago.

A search led her to the local cemetery, where decades ago the state had purchased blocks of land to bury committed patients who had no family ties. With few resources, most were pauper's funerals, with little ceremony, mourning or remembrance.


"These were individuals who had families and aspirations and desires in life, and they lost all that, and they were not only lost in life but were lost in death," said Utah State Hospital Superintendent Dallas Earnshaw. "This is an opportunity for them to be remembered."

"These were individuals who had families and aspirations and desires in life, and they lost all that, and they were not only lost in life but were lost in death," said Utah State Hospital Superintendent Dallas Earnshaw. "This is an opportunity for them to be remembered."

"It took a few years to figure out who was there," Chilton said, adding that some of the old, hand-written records contained mistakes that first had to be deciphered and corrected.

And not much is known about when and where the deceased patients were born or how they lived, let alone their condition. Most records contain little more than details of admission to the hospital, even though many spent years at the facility before dying in custody.

Hundreds of insignificant burials happened between 1886 — the year after the facility was opened — and 1960, when responsibility for civil patients was returned to their home counties upon death, which has become more rare over the years.

"These people deserve to be recognized," Chilton said. "They lived through difficult times, and we feel strongly that they need to be recognized."

'Strange reasons'

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, people were often committed to state custody for what Earnshaw calls "strange reasons."

There was a belief that patients would not recover and should be removed from society.

Marital strife and financial stress were (and still are) common contributors for mental breakdown, but sometimes patient records would also state that a person read too much, was jealous or was seeing things, among other silly reasonings that were obvious misunderstandings back in the day.

"There were a lot of strange philosophies until research on the brain and neurology started to come out," Earnshaw said. "We're still trying to understand the brain and still trying to develop better treatment. … What we're doing today may someday be seen just as old-fashioned or archaic."

A photograph of patients who resided in the Utah Territorial Insane Asylum — now the Utah State Hospital — during the 1900s hangs on the wall of the hospital's museum in Provo on Wednesday, March 22, 2017. The Forgotten Patient’s Cemetery Project is planning to erect memorials and plaques to honor the patients who are buried in unmarked graves at the Provo City Cemetery. (Photo: Utah State Hospital Museum)
A photograph of patients who resided in the Utah Territorial Insane Asylum — now the Utah State Hospital — during the 1900s hangs on the wall of the hospital's museum in Provo on Wednesday, March 22, 2017. The Forgotten Patient’s Cemetery Project is planning to erect memorials and plaques to honor the patients who are buried in unmarked graves at the Provo City Cemetery. (Photo: Utah State Hospital Museum)
A photograph of patients who resided in the Utah Territorial Insane Asylum — now the Utah State Hospital — during the 1900s hangs on the wall of the hospital's museum in Provo on Wednesday, March 22, 2017. The Forgotten Patient’s Cemetery Project is planning to erect memorials and plaques to honor the patients who are buried in unmarked graves at the Provo City Cemetery. (Photo: Utah State Hospital Museum)
A photograph of patients who resided in the Utah Territorial Insane Asylum — now the Utah State Hospital — during the 1900s hangs on the wall of the hospital's museum in Provo on Wednesday, March 22, 2017. The Forgotten Patient’s Cemetery Project is planning to erect memorials and plaques to honor the patients who are buried in unmarked graves at the Provo City Cemetery. (Photo: Utah State Hospital Museum)

He said the forgotten patients cemetery project is a way for society "to look back and value human life" and prevent such injustices from happening again.

Nowadays, hospital patients rarely die in custody. There is a lot more hope in treatment and recovery, and a desire for patients to return to their own homes and communities.

"In the last couple of decades, we've made a lot of progress in the treatment of mental health," Earnshaw said. "We are no longer the end of the road or a long-term care facility."

He said the average hospital stay for mentally ill and committed patients is around six months.

"We're that more intensive level of care, for the people whose condition has progressed to the point where the resources aren't available in the community," Earnshaw said. The majority of services today are offered to forensic patients referred to the facility for competency evaluations by the courts.

Overcoming stigma

While it once served a sort of baby-sitting function for the mentally ill and those deemed unfit for society, the state hospital now offers beneficial programs for its patients, many of whom live "normal" lives, said Earnshaw.

"We were the only option for treatment back then, now there are lots of options," he said, adding there are always new theories about how to approach mental illness, best practice guidelines are constantly changed to guide the best treatment, providers receive more and more education, and mental illness has become easier to talk about.

But, Earnshaw and others worry, there is still a stigma to overcome.

"People with mental illness still are judged and have to put up with so much," he said. "There is a bias and prejudice toward people that society feels are doing things that are inappropriate, not acceptable, moral and character defects, or weak."

As people experience mental illness in their loved ones, Earnshaw said people then recognize that there is hope in treatment and recovery.

"It can be scary before they figure that out," he said. Those suffering also struggle to know how or where to reach out for help.

But it is important to remember, Earnshaw said, that not everyone who is mentally ill is committing crimes or doing things that commonly pop up in the news, media or movies. He said that seems to shape public perception of the problems, but isn't a fair representation of the mentally ill population.


"These were individuals who had families and aspirations and desires in life, and they lost all that, and they were not only lost in life but were lost in death," said Utah State Hospital Superintendent Dallas Earnshaw. "This is an opportunity for them to be remembered."

"These were individuals who had families and aspirations and desires in life, and they lost all that, and they were not only lost in life but were lost in death," said Utah State Hospital Superintendent Dallas Earnshaw. "This is an opportunity for them to be remembered."

A lot of the civilly committed individuals receiving help at the state hospital are people with homes and families, jobs and responsibilities that they need assistance getting back to.

In addition to criminal competency evaluations and treatment, the state facility offers pediatric programs for kids with serious emotional disorders, as well as satellite programs, in which providers travel to county jails to treat people awaiting evaluations prior to due process. Demand for services has outgrown the space available for treatment, resulting in extensive waiting lists and delayed services.

Reconnecting families

The Forgotten Patients Cemetery Project has brought hope to employees like Chilton and others, as it has already connected at least one family to a lost loved one and sparked interest in others doing genealogy or still searching for people who may have been in the group buried at the cemetery.

Chilton said the patients came from all walks of life, were from inside and outside of Utah, and of different nationalities and ages.

Stewart Kingsburg, 60, was the first to die and be buried in custody of the facility, after he was admitted for being "blind, deaf and helpless," as records state. It was noted that family members were informed of the death but requested that the hospital take care of a burial.

At least 27 patients were institutionalized for epilepsy and spent many years at the hospital before dying there in the early 1900s. Records state that 20 patients were "feeble-minded." Neither reason is considered enough to remove a person from their homes for treatment today.

A photograph of patients who resided in the Utah Territorial Insane Asylum — now the Utah State Hospital — during the 1900s hangs on the wall of the hospital's museum in Provo on Wednesday, March 22, 2017. The Forgotten Patient’s Cemetery Project is planning to erect memorials and plaques to honor the patients who are buried in unmarked graves at the Provo City Cemetery. (Photo: Utah State Hospital Museum)
A photograph of patients who resided in the Utah Territorial Insane Asylum — now the Utah State Hospital — during the 1900s hangs on the wall of the hospital's museum in Provo on Wednesday, March 22, 2017. The Forgotten Patient’s Cemetery Project is planning to erect memorials and plaques to honor the patients who are buried in unmarked graves at the Provo City Cemetery. (Photo: Utah State Hospital Museum)
A photograph of patients who resided in the Utah Territorial Insane Asylum — now the Utah State Hospital — during the 1900s hangs on the wall of the hospital's museum in Provo on Wednesday, March 22, 2017. The Forgotten Patient’s Cemetery Project is planning to erect memorials and plaques to honor the patients who are buried in unmarked graves at the Provo City Cemetery. (Photo: Utah State Hospital Museum)
A photograph of patients who resided in the Utah Territorial Insane Asylum — now the Utah State Hospital — during the 1900s hangs on the wall of the hospital's museum in Provo on Wednesday, March 22, 2017. The Forgotten Patient’s Cemetery Project is planning to erect memorials and plaques to honor the patients who are buried in unmarked graves at the Provo City Cemetery. (Photo: Utah State Hospital Museum)

The youngest patient buried at the cemetery by the hospital is a 20-month-old baby, Phyllis Joan, who was born with hydrocephalus, was adopted by an Ogden family and was later returned to state custody. She died in 1931 while providers apparently struggled to find a way to treat a patient so young.

A public remedy

Utah Rep. Edward Redd, R-Logan, recently carried a succesful proposal in the form of House Concurrent Resolution 3, which aims to make the issue of the forgotten patients more public and drum up support for a monument and markers at the cemetery, where the names of patients buried there can be shown.

"I don't think we fully understand what it means to be mentally ill," Redd told colleagues at the Utah Legislature. "And I don't think we understand what it meant to be mentally ill a hundred years ago."

As a mental health care provider, Redd believes it is a great learning experience "to be able to care for these people and help them with their challenges." He said that while physical and emotional separation from family is no longer typical practice, it is important to remember history and what happened to the former hospital patients "and the suffering they've been through."

For more information about the project or to make a donation, visit ush.utah.gov or namiut.org.

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