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When working as a genealogy librarian I always found it hilarious when helping an individual do research - and they came across an "idiot" in their line. Most people had to have the historical context explained to them.
It still makes me laugh to think of it. I never stooped to calling library patrons names to their faces - but I loved and adored when the historical record did it for me!
I know I'll get burned for this post, but I'm putting it up anyway.
I once found a census listing for a "town" in southern NJ that had been set up as an asylum-community for people with mental retardation, and every person had something like that listed after their name.
Out of curiosity, because I am from NJ, do you recall the name of this town/institution? Greystone is what immediately came to mind ... Thank you kindly.
No, it's way down south, I think in Salem County. It was first an institution for people with mental retardation and other conditions, like epilepsy, and they branched out and made a whole town, so the more highly-functioning residents could have jobs and interact in a more natural "community" setting. I believe a descendent branch of the institution is still in existence, under a different name, providing community DD services.
I'll have to look again. You might also find a reference to it on Weird NJ.
It was a "town" affiliated with the Vineland Training School, or whatever it was called back then (it went through several names, some including "feeble-minded" or "moron.") Elwyn currently owns what's left of the Vineland Training School, and they have community & educational services. There is also the Vineland Developmental Center in that area, but that's a State of NJ facility. I don't think they were ever connected, excpt by geography.
The colony/town was also affiliated with the US Dept of Agriculture, since the town had a working farm where most of the residents worked. I think there was something special about peaches, but there were other crops too.
Weird NJ says it was called the "Menantico Colony." But I think the census I looked at was for Vineland itself; I don't think "Menantico" was an incorporated town or anything.
I think the census I looked at was early 20th century, maybe 1900 or 1910.
No, it's way down south, I think in Salem County. It was first an institution for people with mental retardation and other conditions, like epilepsy, and they branched out and made a whole town, so the more highly-functioning residents could have jobs and interact in a more natural "community" setting. I believe a descendent branch of the institution is still in existence, under a different name, providing community DD services.
I'll have to look again. You might also find a reference to it on Weird NJ.
How sad, the epilepsy was considered a form of insanity. I've known several people with epilepsy who do quite well with medication and are functioning members of society. Actually, one is a PhD and chairman of math at a leading univerrsity. Thankfully we have come a long way
Those census can really tell a story if you delve into them.
Last night I was researching my aunt, she's always been a mystery to me, I never even knew her married name. I found she lived at an address along with sever others, all of different names. I thought perhaps it was some sort of institution. then, upon researching further, I realized it was an upscale apt building in NY and she owned the building! Also, she owned a dress shop, and another dress shop in PA. Quite the busy business woman, way back in 1920. All that before women got the right to vote! Hey, maybe I should write a book or something, about women who could own business and property, but couldn't be trusted to vote
My Grandmother's cousin had epilepsy and had to leave public school at and early age, I think around 9-10, because epileptics weren't allowed to attend school if they were having seizures.
He was "old" by the time I came along, and by then he functioned like he had mild mental retardation. But it was really due to brain damage from the uncontrolled seizures as a child. He never really talked to anyone, as he was mostly non-verbal, and I just saw him at family picnics once in a while when I was a kid.
I recently found a story written by a local historian in my home town about this cousin when he was a child. The writer grew up with him, and took him under his wing and helped him join the local Boy Scouts. He protected him from the teasing, and my cousin was able to have some friends for a while after being so isolated. The story just made me cry my eyes out. Here was this relative I never really got to know, and my Grandmom never was close to him, as he was "different." That story really gave me a little glimpse of who he had been, and it was before the brain damage happened that left him nearly mute.
He lived his whole life with his parents, and then stayed in the same home after they died, keeping to himself, and only leaving the house to go to the grocery store and church every week.
Thank you so much for the response! Oddly enough, I have a distant relative (I can't even recall the exact relationship) that was at Vineland for a lot of years. She may have died there. I don't recall all the details of the story.
A relative connected to me through Ancestry and she noted that she was dumbfounded by the "disappearance" of her great aunt whom she'd known as a very young child. She'd inquired after her a lot but never got a satisfactory response.
I mentioned this in passing to MY grandmother, who was a 3rd cousin (or something like that to the woman in question). I brought it up, not suspecting at all my grandmother would know who I was talking about, I was just filling her in on some connections I'd made through genealogy. She replied, "That nut ended up in Vineland. Mother and I visited her a few times after she got a car." My grandmother and great-grandmother would've lived in Newark at the time. As a matter of fact, the vast majority of the family lived in Newark, or the greater Newark area, and I doubt this relative would've gotten many visitors due to the distance. This was likely in the late 1940s based on the details recalled by my grandmother.
Per my grandmother, the woman was hospitalized because she "refused to send her children to school". Perhaps that was a factor. My grandmother also implied that the relative who committed her had a financial motive. I believe there was a scary time in history when the State actually paid people to have others forcibly committed?
Anyway, I debated for weeks whether or not to tell this woman what happened to her relative. Well, "our" relative actually. Because the reality was that the people she was asking were old enough to recall what had happened to her so they were purposely not sharing the information (likely due to embarrassment). Then, I had to decide how to do it gently. Anyway, I told her as tactfully as I could and she turned around and called my grandmother a liar and I subsequently cut contact with her. How's that for a happy ending?
Maybe I should have . I received similar agitated reactions from my grandmother when I made certain revelations to her. And it amazes me to this day because the past is just that, the past. I am always very interested in the truth. I cannot and will not be embarrassed nor upset by actions taken by people before me. In fact, the odder the story, the more intrigued I become! I love family lore.
My great grandmother on my mom's dad's side has to have been the seed of the bipolar gene in the family. He worked for the railroad, something important as he had a family pass, and had homes in California and the midwest. He'd go to work and come home with a note she took the kids east. Eventually he'd come and talk her into coming home but all the kids were raised in California and born in the midwest.
She did the same when instead they had two homes in California, just on a whim. But she had a husband with sufficent money that acting irratically didn't matter. I remember someone in the family saying she was 'excentric'. I wonder if those who ended up in asylms were mostly the poor or those who had something to steal and didn't get to be just excentric.
My great grandmother on my mom's dad's side has to have been the seed of the bipolar gene in the family. He worked for the railroad, something important as he had a family pass, and had homes in California and the midwest. He'd go to work and come home with a note she took the kids east. Eventually he'd come and talk her into coming home but all the kids were raised in California and born in the midwest.
She did the same when instead they had two homes in California, just on a whim. But she had a husband with sufficent money that acting irratically didn't matter. I remember someone in the family saying she was 'excentric'. I wonder if those who ended up in asylms were mostly the poor or those who had something to steal and didn't get to be just excentric.
Being eccentric definitely upped ones chances of being committed to a "Lunatic Asylum" - I actually saw that on an old State Hospital in Binghamton MY.
Another factor? Being female. Control, money, and gender bias were (and to some degree, still are, factors in being committed.
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Hey, maybe I should write a book or something, about women who could own business and property, but couldn't be trusted to vote
. I received similar agitated reactions from my grandmother when I made certain revelations to her. And it amazes me to this day because the past is just that, the past. I am always very interested in the truth. I cannot and will not be embarrassed nor upset by actions taken by people before me. In fact, the odder the story, the more intrigued I become! I love family lore.
