History's not only about the famous and successful people.

I need to remember that when I'm in a rather tenuous mood to begin with, I should probably stay away from the heartbreaking books. Unfortunately, I didn't keep that in mind when I read The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic, by Darby Penney and Peter Stastny.

This was another book that arrived on my library hold list with me having no remembrance of having requested it or where I first heard about it, which is always a surreal experience to begin with. It is a completely unique little book; the authors became interested in the suitcases and personal belongings of long-term inmates of the Willard Psychiatric Center in upstate New York. Included are pictures of the contents of those suitcases (which were recovered years after their owners died, in the attic of the hospital), as well as the admission photographs of the people to whom the suitcases belonged.

Believe me when I say: You did not want to be committed to a psychiatric hospital in the early and mid-twentieth century. (A scary epilogue points out that it would be best to avoid that these days as well.) Ten individuals are profiled here, and many of them spent decades in the hospital, as treatment was not as important as warehousing. And the majority of the people profiled here were not crazy, screaming, violent inmates. One was a trained nurse whose descent into instability was preceded by the early death of her parents, her immigration to America, numerous stressful health problems, and her bosses' insistence that she change personal doctors, because the doctor she liked was judged to be too far away for her to visit. Despite the fact that her admitting doctor at Willard found her to be "pleasant, agreeable, and correctly oriented," she was diagnosed with "dementia praecox, paranoid" and committed. Thirty-two years later she would die there.

Oh, it's a sad book. And history at its finest. Someone thought the suitcases were worth saving; someone else took the care to document their content. And then these authors came along to construct personal stories from the belongings and the records. Completely uncommercial and enlightening. Stpehen Ambrose, all you other glorifiers of war history that's commercially successful, bow before your true historian masters.

Comments

[TheBunlessLIbrarian]

Curses! My to-read pile is already on the verge of toppling. This one might put it over the edge. Citizen Reader has almost single-handedly created my to-read backlog.

Do you think you can start posting more about the terrible stuff you hated so I have some time to catch up?

Seriously though, this blog is a nonfiction lover's dream.

Thanks for all the good reads.

[The Laundress]

oh boy, I had seen earlier reviews of this book and what happened? I forgot about it?

My grandfather was the staff plumber for the Willard Psychiatric. Yep, personal ties were what first caught my eye about the title. Damn, how did I forget it? Think I read pre-pub press release.

Grandad had a serious, chronic back injury that resulted from a resident attempting to clean "dirty" sand off of icy steps by pouring buckets of water over the outdoor staircases one winter.

Drop in the bucket, but hooray for historians. And those who save abandoned suitcases.

[Citizen Reader]

Hello, BunlessLibrarian!
I love creating reading backlogs. I feel like I have a reason for being now! Thank you.
I'll keep an eye out for some terrible fiction and nonfiction to rip into for some good old-fashioned negative reviews. They're what makes the world go round, after all.

Laundress!
I don't know why, but I thought of you when I read this. I think you'd really appreciate it. And what are the chances that your grandfather worked there? And I'm sorry about his injury. Did he ever say anything else about it? I got the feeling it was actually founded with the best of intentions but just became a warehouse due to lack of treatment options and techniques. So sad.

[TheBunlessLibrarian]

Thanks for the short break with your Thomas Friedman post. (I did slog through The World is Flat, though I checked it out from the library). The break was just enough time to get through The Lives They Left Behind.

Well . . . I can't say you didn't warn me. That was a pretty emotionally battering read. Aside from the heart-wrenching profiles of the patients, there is just something so immeasurably wrong with some many tortured souls ending up in a practically unmarked graveyard that has become noting more than an overgrown pasture.

Thanks for the poignant rec.

[Citizen Reader]

BunlessLibrarian,
I'm so glad you read this one. I think it deserves a wider audience than it's going to get. I'll admit it broke my heart to think of these peoples' few possessions being left in the hospital attic and forgotten (not to mention their very long lives in what doesn't sound like a very healthy or happy environment). I often wonder about buildings where so much unhappiness has been experienced--I don't know that I believe in ghosts but I do think the walls actually soak up some of the misery. I always feel this way about hospitals too. Anyway. If you're looking for another tough read about contemporary mental health "care," Pete Earley's "Crazy," about his son's struggle with mental illness, is another tough but eye-opening read.

[Citizen Reader]

By the way, Bunless, I agree about the sadness of the graveyard. And I'll have to remember the descriptor "emotionally battering." That about sums it up.

[TheBunlessLibrarian]

Wow . . . clearly I shouldn't comment before my first cup of coffee as it severely impairs my ability to catch typos.

Thanks for the "Crazy" rec. I'll add it to my list, but next I have The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokai. I mean what better way to follow up the story of the Willard Psychiatric Center than with the story of a miserable Leprosy colony in Hawaii established in the 1800s.

I guess I am just a glutton for misery.