Last week, I devoted my blog post to the most famous person buried at Nebraska City’s Wyuka Cemetery, J. Sterling Morton and his family. But there are other monuments and people worth talking about at this historic cemetery.

If you were wowed by Morton’s tree monument, there are a few more worth sharing. The “tree” for the Hill family is located in front of the Morton family plot. While they are both trees, the Hill monument feels more rustic to me.

The story on William Edward (W.E.) Hill is a bit sketchy. I’ve seen him listed as a native of Virginia, but U.S. Census records almost always list him as being born in Ohio. I don’t know when he met and married his wife, Mary, nor do I know her maiden name. At some point, they came to Nebraska City where W.E. was a grain merchant and active in local agricultural groups.

W.E. was also a mover and shaker in the Masons. Some articles indicate he may have been a Grand Master. I didn’t take a picture of the other side of the monument with his inscription but someone named “SarahD” on Find a Grave did so I want you to see that as well.

Mary died in Nebraska City in 1890 after an illness of many years. At some point, W.E. moved out to California where he died in 1917. His obituary states that his body was accompanied by his wife back to Nebraska City by train, so he must have remarried. I don’t believe W.E. and Mary had any children together.

There’s one more tree monument I want you to see and I think it’s possible that F.O. Cross (the stone mason who did the Morton tree) may have carved this one as well because the style is very similar.

A native of Missouri, Charles Potts was born in 1848 and arrived in Nebraska City in 1865.  In 1873, he married 20-year-old Elfleda “Fleda” Russell. He worked various jobs, from clerk to cashier to finally partnership in a wholesale grocery business called Lorton & Potts. Like W.E. Hill, he was active in the Masons. The couple had one daughter, Mary Ellen, in 1877.

I don’t know the cause of death, but Charles passed away on August 4, 1882. He was only 33. Tragedy struck again a few months later on Dec. 1, 1883 when Mary Ellen died.

Fleda, I learned, led a rather tumultuous early life. Born shortly before her parents moved to Nebraska, her mother passed away in 1857. Fleda was sent back east to New Jersey to live with relatives while her father, James Russell, headed to Colorado. Tragically, he was murdered there in 1863 when Fleda was only 10. She moved back to Nebraska City to live with her grandfather, later meeting and marrying Charles Potts.

In 1889, Fleda married Charles E. Swift in Iowa City. The marriage announcement describes it as a “complete surprise” to her neighbors, but a happy one. By 1900, they were living in Omaha and Charles was working as a salesman in a dry goods store. They had one son, Russell. The 1910 U.S. Census lists the three living near Sioux City, Iowa and that Charles was supported by his “own income”.

Charles Swift died in 1911 and was buried at Wyuka Cemetery. His name is not inscribed on the tree but he has a small stone beside it. In 1914, Russell moved to Vermillion, S.D. with plans for Fleda to join him as soon as he had finished building a home for them. But Fleda died in Sioux City in 1916 and was buried beside her two husbands. I have no idea where the money came from to pay for such a grand monument.

Russell, who served as as an aviator in World War I, was a mechanic who married not long after his return. He died of a heart attack in 1933 and is buried in South Dakota.

This next marker is unlike any you are likely to see anywhere else. Shaped like a desk, the Harding family monument is quite remarkable.

The Harding plot has the same tree-themed border as the Mortons, but doesn’t have the planters. I do like the “stumps” in the back and the “logs” in the front.

Born in Marion, Ohio in 1831, Nehemiah Story Harding operated a mercantile business in Cincinnati. He married Mary Ann “Mamie” King Baldwin in 1852. They moved to Nebraska City in 1855. His obituary notes that he wrote the first insurance policy in the Nebraska Territory in 1857. Harding also served as deputy clerk of the federal court while running a mercantile business. He was active in local politics and probably a Mason.

Nehemiah and Mamie had 10 children over the course of their marriage. Eldest Cora was born in Ohio before the move to Nebraska. Bennett, Frederick, and Alice all died in childhood. Bennett and Frederick actually share a “book” with their names and dates inscribed on it to the left side of the desk. Alice, who died in 1872, has her own book on the right side of the desk.

Because of my height, my photo of the top of the desk is not the best. But you can see the pages for Grace (1863-1937), Mamie (1833-1900), Nehemiah (1831-1915) and Mary Rachel (1872-1955). Cora, Nellie, Edyth and Willard are buried elsewhere in Wyuka with their spouses. Daughter Winona “Winnie” Hill is buried in Nebraska with her husband.

Mamie died in 1900 after a long illness with daughter Winnie at her side. Nehemiah suffered a stroke in 1910 and died of apoplexy at the age of 84 in 1915. His obituary notes he spent the winter in California and had just returned to Nebraska City.

It also notes that Harding was instrumental in getting the home for the blind located in Nebraska City, which opened in 1877. He was an original member of the school’s board of trustees. Now known as the Nebraska Center for the Education of Children who are Blind of Visually Impaired (NCECBVI), it is still in operation today.

When I saw this next marker, I thought it resembled a ripe tomato resting on a stump because of the shape. But I think it’s mean to be a boulder.

The Gerhard marker is for two children, Enolia and Herbert. Enolia was born on Oct. 31, 1865 and Herbert was born Oct. 6, 1867. Enolia died on April 1, 1870 and Herbert died on April 8, 1870. They both died of the measles, according to a mortality schedule. They are the only two Gerhards buried at Wyuka Cemetery.

On the bottom is the Bible verse Matthew 19:14: “Suffer [the] little children to come until me: and forbid them not for of such is the Kingdom of God.”

The back of the monument, with a Masonic symbol and Odd Fellows chain, leads me to believe a space was left for the parents but never used. The only Gerhards I could track down in Nebraska City were Augustus and Mary Gerhard. A native of Pennsylvania, Augustus was a carpenter who operated a furniture store in Nebraska City for many years and was a Mason.

Augustus and Mary had recently moved to Los Angeles, Calif. to be near their married daughter, Harriet Hunter, when he died there in 1911. So it’s possible he and Mary are both buried in California.

It makes me a bit sad to think of Enolia and Herbert alone there. But this happened quite often when families moved further west in later years, leaving the graves of little ones behind.

I’m not quite done at Wyuka Cemetery yet. Come back next time for stories of the ladies of Wyuka.

After our Iowa Adventure, Christi and I were both ready to get back to Omaha. But since we were near southwest Nebraska, I asked for one last cemetery hop. Nebraska City’s Wyuka Cemetery (not to be confused with the one in Lincoln) was on my list of places to visit and it was on our way back.

As we drove in, I saw a sign directing us toward a computer kiosk where guests can look up grave locations. Now THAT was a surprise! Cemeteries with written grave locations on a board are fairly rare. But a freestanding computer to look up names? Wyuka Cemetery does indeed have one and it works well.

Established in 1855, Wyuka has about 16,000 burials recorded on Find a Grave and covers around 35 acres. Cemetery records only go back to 1888 because of a fire. It was named Wyuka Cemetery in 1856, signifying the Indian vernacular for “place of rest.”

Nebraska City’s Most Famous Resident

There’s no question who the most famous person buried at Wyuka is and the plot’s impressive monument is equal to the prestige. Julius Sterling Morton, a U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and founder of the holiday known as Arbor Day, is buried here with his wife and some of their family. The massive tree-shaped monument was commissioned after the death of Mrs. Morton in 1881. I’ll share the details on that later.

My father-in-law, Craig, actually attended J. Sterling Morton High School in Cicero (a Chicago suburb) and the school district is also named after him. Since Morton never lived in Chicago, this puzzled me until I learned that Morton was good friends with Cicero resident and fur trader Portus Baxter Weare. One of Morton’s sons, Mark, married Weare’s daughter, Martha.

Born in New York in 1832, Morton got his bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and married his high school sweetheart, Caroline “Carrie” Joy French. They moved to the Nebraska Territory in 1855, where they purchased 160 acres of land in Nebraska City.

Morton became editor of the local newspaper, the Nebraska City News and soon began his political career as a conservative Democrat. In 1858, President James Buchanan appointed Morton secretary of the Nebraska Territory, and he twice served as acting governor. Morton was a candidate for delegate to Congress in 1860 and received a certificate of election from the governor. However, Morton was never allowed to take his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives as his election was contested in the overwhelmingly Republican House.

While Morton loved politics, his passion for trees might have been even greater. In Nebraska City, Morton built a mansion that resembles the White House that he called Arbor Lodge. On the surrounding estate, Morton planted many rare varieties and heirloom apple trees. Respected as an agriculturalist, Morton taught modern techniques of farming and forestry. Among his most significant achievements was the founding of Arbor Day, which is usually celebrated on the last Friday in April.

Morton became well known in Nebraska for his political, agricultural, and literary activities. He was appointed U.S. Secretary of Agriculture by President Grover Cleveland in 1893. He is credited with helping change that department into a coordinated service to farmers, and he supported Cleveland in setting up national forest reservations.

Morton and Carrie had four sons. The eldest son, Joy (yes, you read that right), founded the Morton Salt Company, along with his brother, Mark. The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Ill. was begun by Joy, who shared his father’s love of trees. Both brothers are buried in the Morton Family Cemetery in Lisle, Ill.

Paul became Secretary of the Navy under President Theodore Roosevelt. He is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, N.Y. Youngest son Carl founded the Argo Starch Company that still exists today. He is the only Morton brother buried at Wyuka Cemetery.

Branches of a Family

The Morton plot contains the graves of J. Sterling Morton, Carrie Morton, their son, Carl Morton, Carl’s wife, Boatie Payne Morton, Caroline’s foster mother, Cynthia French, J. Sterling’s sister, Emma Morton, and a granddaughter, Laura Weare Morton.

Surrounding the plot is a log-themed border, complete with planters at the entrance and on two corners. Considering how much Morton loved trees, it makes perfect sense.

One article stated that the “tree” itself weighs eight tons. I can’t imagine how strong the oxen or horses had to have been to pull the wagon carrying it.

“Love at First Glimpse”

On the front of the tree is the inscription for Carrie and J. Sterling. Carrie’s mother, Caroline Hayden Joy, died about a year after her daughter’s birth in Michigan. Her father, Hiram Joy, agree to let neighbors Deacon David French and Cynthia French raise Carrie while sending them financial support. Her name became Caroline Joy French to reflect that arrangement but she was still close with her father, who became quite wealthy over the years.

Carrie loved running Arbor Lodge and helping her husband in all of his ventures. Of her marriage to Morton, she said, “We fell for each other at first glimpse and we were never cured.” A knee injury that never healed put her health in jeopardy and Carrie Morton died at the age of 47 on June 29, 1881.

On the other side is an inscription for Carrie’s foster mother, Cynthia French, who died at Arbor Lodge in November 1857 at the age of 70. Youngest son Carl died in 1901 in Waukegan, Ill., where he had just moved with his wife and children. I found reports of  differing causes of death, from a hearth attack to pneumonia to a cerebral hemorrhage. He was only 35.

Carl’s wife, Boatie Payne Morton, known as “Lizzie”, died in 1932 at the age of 63. She and Carl had two children, Wirth and Martha.

A Sister Helps a Brother

At the base of the tree is a lone tablet inscribed with the name of Morton’s younger unmarried sister, Emma. When Caroline died, Morton was devastated. He asked Emma to move into Arbor Lodge and she took over the running of the house. He depended on her to help him finish the remodeling Carrie was working on when she died. Morton left Emma an annuity in his will to take care of her for her remaining lifetime. She died in April 1912.

J. Sterling’s health took a turn after Carl’s death in 1901 and he was never quite the same. He died on April 27, 1902 in Chicago while visiting Paul in Illinois. His body was returned to Nebraska City by train and he was buried with his beloved Carrie at Wyuka Cemetery.

After his death, the family donated Arbor Lodge and the estate grounds to the State of Nebraska. The estate is now preserved as the Arbor Lodge State Historical Park. You can visit Arbor Lodge from April to October, which is furnished as it was in 1905.

Skill in Stone

The man who created this massive tree monument was Ferdinand O. Cross, a skilled carver with a known reputation. You can even find his name and address on it.

Born in 1838 to stone carver John Cross and Sophronia Hewitt Cross of Binghamton, N.Y., Ferdinand learned his craft from his father. He moved to Bedford, Ind., the “Limestone Capital of the World” in the 1880s where he started his own monument business.

Ferdinand eventually met John Rowe and they formed a partnership known as Cross & Rowe Monumental Works. They often used Bedford stone as their medium of choice because it was easy to work with when first quarried. After the shape was carved, it was set outside to harden. You can find their monuments in cemeteries across the country, although this is one of their most notable examples. The also provided carvings to the World’s Fair in 1883 in Chicago.

A Child’s Short Life

I would be remiss if I did not mention the one stone sitting by itself in one corner. It is for Laura Weare Morton, the first child of Mark and Martha Parkhurst Weare Morton. She was born in May 1889 and died on Dec. 11, 1892 in Nebraska City. According to her obituary, Laura and her parents had come to Arbor Lodge for Thanksgiving when she became ill with scarlet fever.

There’s more to be discovered at Wyuka Cemetery. I’ll be back with more in my next post.

Last week, I shared some of the stories I discovered while researching the Clarinda Treatment Complex Cemetery in Iowa. Today I’ve got some more for you that reflect the different people that found themselves there over the years.

This is the stone for a young woman named Goldie Brown. I don’t have all the pieces to her story, but what I found made me sad.

Blind From Birth

Goldie was born to Thomas Brown and Phylena Conn Brown on Jan. 29, 1903 in Iowa. She and her family were living in Tilden, Kansas according to the 1910 Census. Goldie is listed as being blind, the only record where I found this fact mentioned. An Ancestry member noted she was blind from birth. In no records did I ever find her listed as insane.

By 1920, Goldie had moved to Glenwood to the Iowa Institution for Feeble-Minded Children (IIFMC). In March 1876, the Iowa legislature designated the grounds of the former Glenwood Orphan’s Home as the location for the first Iowa Asylum for Feeble-Minded Children. The 1877 Annual Report listed 85 children and already crowded conditions. It was eventually renamed the IIFMC.

The IIFMC expanded to over 1,000 acres as it became its own self-contained community, isolated from the rest of Glenwood by a wrought iron fence. By 1908, the resident population numbered 1,100 people overseen by a staff of 175. The IIFMC is now known as the Glenwood Resource Center and provides mental health services to about 400 people.

Goldie was 27 when she left the IIFMC and arrived at the Clarinda State Hospital in April 1930. She died on Feb. 11, 1937. Her death record states that she died of bronchopneumonia and had epilepsy. Her mother had already had passed away in 1931 of tuberculosis. Her father, Timothy, died in 1938 from angina. Goldie was 34 at the time of her death.

The Sad End of Mary Lewis Freno

When I began researching the life of Mary Freno, I only knew she was 34 at the time of her death, which seemed quite young. I thought because she had a nice marker and not the plain one provided by the CSH, she had family that cared about her. It turned out things were not as I supposed.

Born in Kansas City, Mo. around 1886, Mary Lewis was the only child of Italian immigrants Samuel and Mary Lewis. In August 1908, she married Italian native Louis Freno in Wapello, Iowa. Born in 1889, his real name was Luigi Fiorini and he came to America in 1902. Later, he had another alias, Tom Davis. Mary was 24 at the time.

The 1910 U.S. Census lists the couple as living in Ottumwa with Mary’s widowed mother and Louis working for the railroad. I found a clipping announcing the death of Mary’s mother, Mary Lewis, who died at the age of 71 on Sept. 13, 1910.

By 1920, everything had changed. Mary was living in Indianola with her four children, ranging in age from 9 years to 18 months. Louis was not living with them. I found him in a Des Moines directory listed as a miner in 1916 and 1917. His World War I draft card claimed he was supporting “mother, father, wife and three children.” He does not appear again until 1940 when he was living in California with his father and going by his original name, Luigi Fiorini.

I don’t know if Mary knew she how ill she was when she went to live at CSH not long after that. She died on Oct. 14, 1921 and her cause of death is listed as tuberculosis. Also written on her death record is “deserted by husband”. I can only guess that with four children and no family left to help her, Mary didn’t know where to turn. A sadder end I cannot picture.

The Fate of the Freno Children

So what happened to the Freno children? Eldest son Joseph spent time at the Iowa Soldier’s Orphans Home in Davenport, Iowa until enlisting in the U.S. Cavalry. Ida eventually married. Frank and Guy were adopted by different families. All of them spent most of their lives in Iowa.

I found a 1940 photo of Frank as an adult, leading his orchestra in the 1930s and 40s. He played the guitar and banjo. They were a popular group that played at many ballrooms around the area.

Meanwhile, Louis Freno married a woman named Josephine in 1941 and worked as a machinist. He became a naturalized citizen in 1943. He died in 1951 in Colma, Calif. and is buried in the Italian Cemetery there. His marker says “Dear Husband” on it.

I admit, I have some not so kind thoughts for Louis/Luigi/Tom. The evidence points to him abandoning his wife when she needed him most and leaving his four young children fatherless. Perhaps there is more to the story that I don’t know. But she did not deserve the fate handed to her.

Descent into Schizophrenia

Joseph Thorp’s story is another tragedy. Born in Canada in 1898, he was the son of George and Martha Larabee Thorp. By 1920, they were farming in Missouri. Joseph, at age 21, married Edith Elsie Gigler, who was 20, on Oct. 4, 1923 in Lamoni, Iowa.

The 1930 U.S. Census lists Joseph and Edith living with Joseph’s parents in Burrell, Iowa. By that time, they had three children, James, Josephine, and Mildred.

Joseph Thorp’s descent into schizophrenia must had been frightening for both him and his family. There were no drugs to combat it then. In 1933, Joseph was sent to live at CSH and on On Oct. 30 of that year, Joseph committed suicide by hanging himself with his bedsheet. His death record notes that he suffered from “dementia praecox”, a term that’s been replaced by schizophrenia. By this time, another son, Leo, had joined the family.

The 1940 U.S. Census lists Edith and her four children living with her parents and bachelor brother, Arthur, in Hamilton, Iowa. She never remarried. She died in 1994 and is buried in Rose Hill Cemetery in Lamoni, Iowa, sharing a gravestone with Arthur.

A Mother and Her Sons

Finally, here’s an unusual story of a mother and two of her sons that all died at CSH. This was the last stone I photographed the day we were there.

Born in Ohio, Elizabeth Jacque married Daniel Leigh in Knox, Ill. in 1859. They had three sons, Vinton, Willard and Al. Four other children died in infancy/childhood. In 1885, Daniel Leigh died and was buried in West Jersey Cemetery in Illinois. That same year, Elizabeth moved with her sons to Locust Grove, Iowa.

By 1893, Elizabeth, with sons Willard and Al, had moved to Clarinda. Vinton was now living at CSH. I suspect Elizabeth wanted to be close enough to visit him as often as she could. According to a newspaper article, she asked to join him at CSH in the last years of her life. She died there on March 6, 1915. The Iowa state census records for that year list her as insane, but it’s possible she just wanted to be near her son. Vinton died on May 3, 1928 at the age of 50.

After living at the county farm (which often meant “poor house”) for several years, son Willard entered CSH in 1919. So he spent his last years with Vinton. From the sound of his obituary, Willard was allowed to come and go as he pleased:

Willard Leigh, resident of the state hospital since 1919, and well known about Clarinda by his frequent visits to church and about town, passed away last Tuesday morning. He had been failing for several months and friends had missed him. He had a stroke several nights before his death and never regained consciousness. Burial will be made at the hospital cemetery.

Willard died on April 30, 1934 at the age of 73. He is listed as being buried at Clarinda City Cemetery, which is just down the road from the CTC Cemetery, but there is no photograph of his grave. Al, the last son of the family, moved back to West Jersey, Ill. to farm. He died there in 1940 and is buried in the same cemetery as his father.

Leaving this cemetery was hard because there were a lot of stones I didn’t have time to photograph. I hope to go back someday and finish what I started. So many stories there I would like to write. So many lives unknown.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this Hawkeye state adventure, a part of the country I’d never experienced before. It featured many moments I will always treasure.

Christi and I left Villisca and headed for Clarinda. No mass murders there, thankfully! But it was a place we’d both been once before.

We first visited in 2012 after I arranged a visit to what began as the Clarinda State Hospital (CSH) in 1885. By 2012, the name had changed to the Clarinda Treatment Complex (CTC). The huge rambling building (500,000 square feet) only had about 50 or so geriatric patients still living there, along with a school for delinquent youths called the Clarinda Academy

Why did I want to visit a mental institution? One of my own ancestors lived in such an institution in Athens, Ohio during his final years, which I wrote about in 2014. That made me curious and such places are usually off limits to the public. In 2012, the CTC had a museum devoted to its past that could be toured if you contacted them. So that’s what we did. I didn’t take many photos but the ones I did take have been lost.

Brandon Hunter, who was in charge of activities for the geriatric patients, showed us around the facility. The museum was enlightening, featuring some of the outdated devices used for psychiatric treatment. The facility itself was full of windows and let in lots of light. It was not a dreary place in general. The only place I did not like was when Brandon took us to where they kept recycling until collection day, the former solitary cells for what I took to be possibly violent patients (no longer used, thankfully). They were dark and scary, and we got out of there as soon as possible.

The CTC closed in 2015, deemed too large and too empty to keep operating. Clarinda residents fought to keep it open because it did employ a number of people, including several farmers who provided food. But Iowa’s legislature said no and it closed.

We drove to the main building first and it looked very much as it did in 2012. No plans for it seem imminent. According to a 2017 article, substance abuse treatment center Zion Recovery is using part of the building. The basement kitchens are still being used by the nearby prison. Also on campus is the Clarinda Academy, a facility for delinquent youth sent from across the country which was in the news recently for troubling reasons. So its future is in question as well.

The CSH was the third asylum built in Iowa, with plans to house alcoholics, geriatrics, drug addicts, the mentally ill, and the criminally insane. An act of the Twentieth General Assembly of the State of Iowa authorized the appropriation of $150,000 for that purpose. Building began in 1885, with a section for men opening in 1888. Women patients arrived later.

The building’s design follows several other mental institutions built in the Victorian era originally thought up by Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride, a style now known as the Kirkbride plan. He envisioned an asylum with a central administration building flanked by two wings comprised of tiered wards.

This “linear plan” followed a segregation of residents according to sex and symptoms of illness. Male patients were housed in one wing, female patients in the other. Each wing was sub-divided by ward with the more “excited” patients placed on the lower floors, farthest from the central administrative structure, and the better-behaved, more rational patients situated in the upper floors and closer to the administrative center.

Ideally, this arrangement was intended to make patients’ asylum experience more comfortable and productive by isolating them from other patients with illnesses antagonistic to their own while still allowing fresh air, natural light, and views of the asylum grounds from all sides of each ward.

Brandon told us that while many asylums had very bad reputations, Clarinda was better than most in treating its patients humanely. But like many asylums, overcrowding caused lots of problems until the advent of psychotropic medications like lithium made the need for institutions less pressing.

Also, as I learned from my research about the Athens Asylum, anyone could be committed to a mental asylum in those days for several reasons. If you were tired of caring for your elderly parent, you could drop him or her off at the asylum with few questions asked. Epileptics, post-partum mothers, disobedient teens…all were possible candidates for residency.

I didn’t have time to visit the cemetery in 2012 so it was a “must do” this time. Unlike other mental institutions that have cemeteries featuring only a marker with a number, Clarinda’s cemetery has stones with actual names and death years on them. There are even a few markers scattered about that were provided by families.

The cemetery is located about a quarter of a mile from the main building between a large cornfield and a cow pasture. The cows were quite intrigued with us and came over to see what we were up to.

Knowing few of these small markers were photographed, I took pictures of as many as I could. Some had faded so greatly that you couldn’t make out the name or date. But I added what I could read to Find a Grave later and looked up some of the stories written about them.

This particular marker for George M. Bird (1842-1912) indicates he did have family that cared about him. Born in 1842 in Illinois, George enlisted in Company A of the Iowa 12th Infantry Regiment on Oct. 17, 1861 at the age of 19. It appears he never married.

George appears in the 1900 U.S. Census as living with his sister, Jerusia Steen, and her family in Watkins, Okla. as an invalid. He was still living with his sister and her husband in 1910 in Harrison County, Iowa. George’s veteran administration records indicate he began receiving a pension in 1892, listing that he had a “disease of the chest” and is also marked “imbecile”.

I don’t know what George’s exact cause of death was. Only that he likely only spent the last year or so at Clarinda State Hospital (CSH). It’s possible Jerusia and her husband, getting older themselves, could no longer care for him.

Many of the people buried in the cemetery that I researched were elderly and only spent the last few years of their lives at CSH, with “exhaustion from psychosis” being listed as past of their cause of death. However, there was a pair of stones beside each other for William J. Dunlap and Elizabeth Dunlap that puzzled me. I think they may be siblings but I am not certain.

William J. Dunlap was born in 1861 somewhere in Iowa. His death certificate lists him as having been a farmer and a schoolteacher in Ringgold, Iowa when he entered the Clarinda State Hospital in December 1888. He was 28 at the time. Listed as single, he lived there for 45 years until his death on Jan. 7, 1934 from “exhaustion from psychosis” and “cerebral arteriosclerosis”.

Elizabeth Dunlap, born in 1866, is also listed as a schoolteacher from Ringgold, Iowa when she entered CSH in 1892. She was 26 at the time. Listed as single, she lived there for 41 years before dying on Nov. 3, 1933 of lobar pneumonia. This was only about two months before William died.

I could not find out anything about William or Elizabeth’s parents, neither of them appears in census records before their time at CSH. Because they are listed as being single, school teachers from Ringgold, and are buried next to each other, I think they must have been siblings. At least in once record, Elizabeth is listed as insane on an Iowa state census record. I like to think perhaps that if they were brother and sister, they took comfort from each other’s presence over the years.

There are many more stories to share from Clarinda. I hope you’ll join me next time to learn about them.