Tag Archives: Susan Wishecoby

Few Patients Came Voluntarily

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Elizabeth Packard Being Kidnapped in Broad Daylight and Taken to an Insane Asylum, courtesy National Library of Medicine

Elizabeth Packard Being Kidnapped in Broad Daylight and Taken to an Insane Asylum, courtesy National Library of Medicine

The case of Peter Thompson Good Boy (see last three posts) shows how easy it was for a Native American to lose his freedom. It would be safe to say that few or no patients at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians actually wanted to be there. Patient Susan Wishecoby thought she was going to a hospital when she agreed to go; she apparently had epilepsy or something like it that gave her “spells” that were disruptive. Continue reading →

Another Patient’s Fate

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Admission Notes Showing Insane and Epileptics Co-Mingled

Susan Wishecoby was sent to the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians probably because of her epilepsy. She apparently did not know exactly what was wrong with her, and erroneously thought she was going to a hospital. She wrote many letters to the commissioners of Indian Affairs in office during her confinement, but they always referred her requests for discharge to Dr. Harry Hummer.

Wishecoby obviously got better, and worked with the attendants keeping the wards clean. After Commissioner Burke forwarded a letter of Wishecoby’s to Hummer, he replied: “She suffered from epileptic seizures, upon admission, but has not had one, so far as we have observed, for more than three years.” Hummer went on to say that Wishecoby had had delusions which were also in abeyance, and that her “irascible nature” was probably permanent. Hummer added that “her actions here are all that could be desired.”

After making such a case for her recovery, Hummer hastened to add: “…that she is endeavoring to convince us that she should be returned, and, when the restraints of this institution are removed, she may give way.” Then he got to the heart of the matter–she was of childbearing age. “If we are concerned only in treating this individual, we should probably discharge her. If we are concerned also in treating the future generations and preventing the increase of the number of cases of mental disease, we should pause and give this matter deep consideration.”

Records are incomplete, but the letters that remain show that Hummer wrote these words to the commissioner in July, 1925, and that Susan Wishecoby was returned home on September 14, 1925. The intervention of her brother and the reservation superintendent probably came into play, since references are made to them in additional letters around that same time.

An Epileptic Asylum in Abilene, Texas

One Treatment for Epilepsy

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Small Hospitals Not Always at a Disadvantage

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President Herbert Hoover, General Hines and Staff, Following the Signing of Executive Order Creating the Veterans Administration, courtesy U.S. Veterans Administration

One reason that Dr. Hummer pinched pennies at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians was because his per capita costs were so high. Most experts at the time felt that no asylum with fewer than 500 patients could be run efficiently, and Hummer didn’t reach a fifth of that number at his very fullest. However, Dr. John Grimes (see last post) found that government veterans hospitals were being run quite well. The country had about 20 VA hospitals, which were usually established with ample space on grounds which were beautifully kept.

“Overcrowding is not permitted,” said Grimes. “Space originally provided for other purposes is not transformed into dormitories.” He also found that dormitory buildings on many hospital grounds housed 50 patients or fewer (though the hospitals themselves had several hundred patients). The furnishings were comfortable, and patients had plenty of space, with “provisions for reclining, sitting, walking, and playing, much more ample than in other hospitals publicly maintained.” Grimes saw that painting and decorating in the VA hospitals were very nice; decorations weren’t cheap and “by no means limited to the products of the departments of occupational therapy.”

Grimes’ findings show that government hospitals could be well kept, with adequate staff and the many niceties that made long-term care comfortable. At the Canton Asylum, Dr. Hummer removed all pictures and decorations because patients sometimes pulled them down to use as weapons in their fights–never thinking to attach them permanently to the walls.

Patient Susan Wishecoby pointed out an even sadder failure: “They call this an Indian Asylum and then why don’t the Indians have it more like their home?”

Civil War Veterans Receiving Care at National Bath Branch of the Soldiers Home, courtesy U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

VA Hospitals had Impressive Architecture

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Saving Money at the Insane Asylum

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Patients Working in Laundry Room at Texas State Lunatic Asylum, 1898

Patients Working in Laundry Room at Texas State Lunatic Asylum, 1898

Most insane asylums tried to use patient labor as a way of holding down costs, or as a sort of occupational therapy. At the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, Dr. Harry Hummer had a real mission to hold down expenses, since he knew that his small facility didn’t have the economies of scale that larger institutions did.

Female patients generally worked on household tasks, like sewing and laundry. Susan Wishecoby, an epileptic patient, wrote about scrubbing the floors, and other women complained about the amount of work they had to do. Men usually worked in the gardens or helped with livestock. Dr. Hummer couldn’t actually force patients to work, but many did because it helped them pass the time. They may have also wanted to please the attendants or Dr. Hummer by appearing cooperative.

Patients Sewing at the Cherokee State Hospital for the Insane, early 1900s

Patients Sewing at the Cherokee State Hospital for the Insane, early 1900s

Patients Picking Cotton at Alabama Insane Hospital

Patients Picking Cotton at Alabama Insane Hospital

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Keep Those Crazy Letters Coming

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View of Big Sioux River, which ran past the asylum, 1911

View of Big Sioux River, which ran past the asylum, 1911

Some patients at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians kept up a regular correspondence with the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, letting him know how they felt and what life was like for them in the asylum.

In 1918, Susan Wishecoby, a Menominee Indian, wrote: “I will drop you these few lines in order to let you know I am still alive. I am getting along fine and dandy in my days out here in Canton. I am not sorry I ever did come out here, for I am getting so I don’t have my spells so hard like I use to.”

Inevitably, she longed to go home. In August of 1921 she wrote: “I never did feel so blue and bummy like I feel now days. I certainly set down for a few moments before I go to bed and think of the days that has passed when I was at home.”

Wishecoby entered the asylum on November 8, 1917, and was eventually released on September 14, 1925.

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