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State hospital cemeteries no longer forgotten

Written by Dave Miller - Editor

Wednesday, 19 May 2010 09:53

Terry Smith, chief executive officer of the Northwest Ohio Psychiatric Hospital, is pictured beside the Ohio Historical Marker for the newer of the two Toledo State Hospital cemeteries. (Photo: Trudy Sharp/Ohio Department of Mental Health)

They were hidden in life, forgotten in death.
They were the 1,994 Northwest Ohio residents buried in the two Toledo State Hospital cemeteries.
The older cemetery is sadly symbolic of the more than 900 people buried there - completely out of sight while the public passed by for decades on Arlington Avenue, just west of Detroit Avenue.
That cemetery is fairly close to what is now called the Northwest Ohio Psychiatric Hospital - but even staff who worked there over the last three decades didn't know of the cemetery's existence.
The newer cemetery, which was used from 1922 to 1973, is located just east of the Ruppert Center on the University Of Toledo Health Science Campus.
No signs of any kind identified either cemetery. The only indication that either was a cemetery were some small concrete markers, numbered to correspond with the hospital's burial log. The visible markers are scattered over each site. Many of them remain buried by soil, as a three-year volunteer effort to locate the rest of them continues.
A memorial dedication program this past Saturday finally gave the people buried there some of the respect that escaped them in life. Ohio Historical Markers were unveiled at both sites.
"The state hospital became home for many, as the length of stay could last a lifetime, often spanning decades," reads one of the markers.
An engraved memorial stone was also dedicated at the older cemetery, which was used from 1888 to 1922. Its inscription recognizes the struggle of "those persons whose lives were challenged by mental and physical illnesses during a time when those conditions were misunderstood and treatment was in its infancy."
The cemeteries are the final resting places for more than 30 individuals who formerly lived in Wood County.
They had worked in the community as glassworkers, farmers, housewives and a school teacher, who ended up staying 57 years at the hospital. Another Wood County resident was 42 years old when admitted the first day the "Toledo Asylum for the Insane" opened on Jan. 6, 1888. That person stayed 41 years before dying there.
The causes of death - such as exhaustion, syphilis, diabetes and TB - illustrated the fact that many people used to be housed at the state hospital for strictly medical reasons, while others were there because of their mental illnesses.
The listed reasons people were hospitalized there in the first place ranged from "liquor and narcotics" for one glassworker to "menopause and poverty" for a Wood County woman who was 45 when she was admitted (she died there 27 years later). Other diagnoses included senile dementia, manic depression, paranoia and schizophrenia, while one diagnosis was simply listed as "overwork."
Burials in the new cemetery ended in 1973 "due to diminishing need," as the hospital no longer served those with just medical needs, while better treatments started to help people with mental illnesses recover and return to their communities.
One of Saturday's speakers, Steven Bloir, a middle school principal from the Mansfield area, thanked those at the psychiatric hospital for "saving my brother's life" in the 1980s and '90s. His brother now lives in a community in a neighboring county. Through his own research, Bloir also discovered that both he and his wife have distant relatives buried at the hospital's cemeteries.
Another speaker, Aaron Allen Baker of the University of Toledo, said that the program showed "how important it is to value all people." It also demonstrated that "we have the capacity, and the duty, to be better to people" than society originally was to the 1,994 people buried at the cemeteries.
The cemetery project was the culmination of a 4 1/2-year mission on the part of a small committee of passionate mental health advocates and volunteers who wouldn't give up on their dream "to restore honor and dignity to those buried there."
The self-described "instigator" of this project, Larry Wanucha, learned in 2005 about a large cemetery restoration project in Georgia. He recalls thinking "I'll bet there's a cemetery at the Toledo hospital," even though he never saw any cemetery as he was growing up and playing in the area near the hospital.
His interest sparked the formation of the Toledo State Hospital Cemetery Reclamation Project Committee. Wanucha, now the vice president of NAMI of Greater Toledo, credits Jane Weber and Sharon Yaros for being the "backbone of the committee."
To let the cemeteries remain unknown to the public, Weber said, "would allow the stigma to continue," referring to the old days, when families wanted to keep their relatives "out of sight" in the hospital.
Saturday's program was a concrete step toward chipping away at more than 120 years of stigma.

Last Updated on Wednesday, 19 May 2010 11:24