Besides working on my own family tree I'm working, through public records such as those found on Ancestry.com, Family Search and Newspapers.com, to identify the men, women & children buried at the state hospitals in Morganton, NC (Broughton Hospital), Goldsboro, NC (Cherry Hospital), Petersburg, VA (Central Hospital), Warm Springs, MT (Montana State Hospital) & Farview State Hospital, a forensic facility in Wayne County, PA and Arkansas State Hospital in Little Rock to link them to their loved ones. I am also working to identify those who died in the Dover, NH asylum fire on 9 Feb 1893 and link them to their loved ones.
I have also listed some of those buried at several other institutions across the US and hope to have assistance in linking them to their loved ones.

To document the research involved I post the death certificates on those memorials. One can hope, in time you can understand that a death certificate need not be offensive, no matter what it reveals. Photographs are preferable, of course, but realistically speaking it is HIGHLY unlikely memorials for those buried so long ago are going to be so overfilled with death certificates, draft cards and newspapers clippings that photographs someone finds in a family's archives will find no place left on the memorial page for display. I post news articles when I can find them. But for the overwhelming majority of people buried in asylum cemeteries the death certificate and the draft card are the ONLY documents outside the census to be found. The death certificate, in those instances, tells us where they came from and how long they were hospitalized as well as the cause of death. Some times we are fortunate enough to find a family member's name on the record as well. It is just part of the story of that person's life. I ask that you calm yourself. This, too, shall pass.
The news clippings, the great majority of which have long been in the public domain, provide valuable information not just about the person on whose memorial they are posted but about the society in which they lived and how it viewed mental illness. It is ever so important for us to be aware of that and consider it as we make our way today in the society we create for ourselves and those who follow us.

I am a psychiatrist and have worked in state hospitals for 30 years. Suffice it to say that uninformed judgments about what life in the state hospitals was like (and is like) for those in care there do not do justice to the many attendants, nurses and physicians who gave years of their lives providing kind care to the mentally ill and vulnerable in our asylums. Nor is it appropriate to assume that families whose loved ones were tormented by mental illnesses, intractable epilepsy, brain injuries and syphilis (that for so long was untreatable) "abandoned" them in the asylums.

It is also the case that we are often mistaken in assuming that those buried in asylum cemeteries were "forgotten" or "abandoned" by their loved ones. There is no reason to think most were forgotten by their families. There were lots of reasons for people being buried on asylum grounds. Sometimes it was due to the weather presenting challenges in getting someone's remains all the way home by train or wagon or it was the expense of transporting the remains, something a family may not have been able to afford. Often there was no family left at home to accept the remains. Sometimes a family didn't send their loved one to the asylum for care until the last parent at home had become feeble or had died and after years at the asylum there may have been no one left back home to accept the remains or to even answer the telegram or the letter or the call from the hospital about what to do with the remains. Sometimes the person had been in the asylum so long they considered it home and the family decided to have them buried here. The first hospital superintendent at the WNCIA (State Hospital at Morganton) refused to donate any of the bodies to the medical schools for dissection, saying that if family or friends couldn't provide a burial place for them back home they would be buried in the asylum cemetery. So it wasn't often a matter of "abandonment" or of being "forgotten". The asylums have for too long been misrepresented as places of torment and abandonment. There were, of course, always examples of abuse - just as there were in the homes of the mentally ill. But for many the asylums were a place of refuge and of kind and effective care.

Thank you to those of you who assist me in making these memorials useful, accurate and informative. Please, keep your helpful edits coming.

A lot of conflicts might be avoided among us if each of us will accept and act as if this is about those who've gone before and NOT about us.

If you are fortunate enough in life to be looking for a project to do - please consider documenting the African American cemeteries in your community.

Besides working on my own family tree I'm working, through public records such as those found on Ancestry.com, Family Search and Newspapers.com, to identify the men, women & children buried at the state hospitals in Morganton, NC (Broughton Hospital), Goldsboro, NC (Cherry Hospital), Petersburg, VA (Central Hospital), Warm Springs, MT (Montana State Hospital) & Farview State Hospital, a forensic facility in Wayne County, PA and Arkansas State Hospital in Little Rock to link them to their loved ones. I am also working to identify those who died in the Dover, NH asylum fire on 9 Feb 1893 and link them to their loved ones.
I have also listed some of those buried at several other institutions across the US and hope to have assistance in linking them to their loved ones.

To document the research involved I post the death certificates on those memorials. One can hope, in time you can understand that a death certificate need not be offensive, no matter what it reveals. Photographs are preferable, of course, but realistically speaking it is HIGHLY unlikely memorials for those buried so long ago are going to be so overfilled with death certificates, draft cards and newspapers clippings that photographs someone finds in a family's archives will find no place left on the memorial page for display. I post news articles when I can find them. But for the overwhelming majority of people buried in asylum cemeteries the death certificate and the draft card are the ONLY documents outside the census to be found. The death certificate, in those instances, tells us where they came from and how long they were hospitalized as well as the cause of death. Some times we are fortunate enough to find a family member's name on the record as well. It is just part of the story of that person's life. I ask that you calm yourself. This, too, shall pass.
The news clippings, the great majority of which have long been in the public domain, provide valuable information not just about the person on whose memorial they are posted but about the society in which they lived and how it viewed mental illness. It is ever so important for us to be aware of that and consider it as we make our way today in the society we create for ourselves and those who follow us.

I am a psychiatrist and have worked in state hospitals for 30 years. Suffice it to say that uninformed judgments about what life in the state hospitals was like (and is like) for those in care there do not do justice to the many attendants, nurses and physicians who gave years of their lives providing kind care to the mentally ill and vulnerable in our asylums. Nor is it appropriate to assume that families whose loved ones were tormented by mental illnesses, intractable epilepsy, brain injuries and syphilis (that for so long was untreatable) "abandoned" them in the asylums.

It is also the case that we are often mistaken in assuming that those buried in asylum cemeteries were "forgotten" or "abandoned" by their loved ones. There is no reason to think most were forgotten by their families. There were lots of reasons for people being buried on asylum grounds. Sometimes it was due to the weather presenting challenges in getting someone's remains all the way home by train or wagon or it was the expense of transporting the remains, something a family may not have been able to afford. Often there was no family left at home to accept the remains. Sometimes a family didn't send their loved one to the asylum for care until the last parent at home had become feeble or had died and after years at the asylum there may have been no one left back home to accept the remains or to even answer the telegram or the letter or the call from the hospital about what to do with the remains. Sometimes the person had been in the asylum so long they considered it home and the family decided to have them buried here. The first hospital superintendent at the WNCIA (State Hospital at Morganton) refused to donate any of the bodies to the medical schools for dissection, saying that if family or friends couldn't provide a burial place for them back home they would be buried in the asylum cemetery. So it wasn't often a matter of "abandonment" or of being "forgotten". The asylums have for too long been misrepresented as places of torment and abandonment. There were, of course, always examples of abuse - just as there were in the homes of the mentally ill. But for many the asylums were a place of refuge and of kind and effective care.

Thank you to those of you who assist me in making these memorials useful, accurate and informative. Please, keep your helpful edits coming.

A lot of conflicts might be avoided among us if each of us will accept and act as if this is about those who've gone before and NOT about us.

If you are fortunate enough in life to be looking for a project to do - please consider documenting the African American cemeteries in your community.