Volunteers uncover fate of thousands of Lost Alaskans sent to Oregon mental hospital a century ago

Lucy Pitka McCormick’s relatives honored her life by cooking salmon, elk, beaver and muskrat in an earthen fire pit on the banks of the Chena River outside Fairbanks. They fed her spirit by whipping up whitefish, blueberries and lard into a traditional Alaska Native dessert, serving it on a paper plate and throwing it into the flames.

The family prayed while McCormick’s great-grandson erected a small plywood casket filled with gifts and necessities for the afterlife, including her granddaughter’s artwork and a hairbrush.

The Koyukon-Athabaskan burial ceremony, held over a week in September, was traditional in every sense of the word, except for one thing: McCormick died in 1931. Her body was only recently identified and returned to her family.

McCormick was one of about 5,500 Alaskans admitted to hospitals in Portland, Oregon, between 1904 and the 1960s for crimes deemed “truly insane” by juries.

At the time, the Alaska Territory had no facilities to treat people with mental illness or developmental disabilities, so they were often transported by dog ​​sled, sleigh, or stagecoach to a waiting ship in Valdez. The 2,500 mile (4,000 km) journey ended at Morningside Hospital.

Many never left and their families never knew their fate.

They are known as the Lost Alaskans.

For more than 15 years, volunteers in Fairbanks and Portland have been working to identify people who have made dedicated contributions to the hospital. Many were buried in Portland cemeteries, some in unmarked pauper’s graves. Some, like McCormick, were returned to Alaska for a proper burial.

“It was so reassuring to have Lucy back,” said grandson Wally Carlo. “When she came back to Alaska, you could feel the energy that she had to wait 90-odd years for this.”

a new database went online in February to help families find out if their estranged aunt or great-grandfather was among those sent to Morningside.Websites built on Previous blogis a clearinghouse for research conducted by volunteers.

Finding information was difficult. Most of the private hospital’s records were lost in his 1968 fire, and territorial authorities did not document the perpetrators.

The volunteers became historical detectives in an investigation spanning more than 15 years. Among them is former Alaska State Health Commissioner Karen Perdue. two former state judges, Nige Steinkruger and the late Meg Green; Two other Fairbanks residents, Ellen Ganley and Robin Renfroe, were assisted by Eric Cordengree, a Portland cemetery volunteer.

They combed through dusty Interior Department records in the National Archives, state archives in Alaska and Oregon, and old court records in Alaska, looking for every little detail. Commitment trial results, cemetery files, death certificates, old newspaper articles, U.S. Marshals compensation records, and more. Costs associated with accompanying the patient.

Ganley and Perdue began their search in 2008 at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. Armed with a laptop and a scanner, he spent a week trying to find any references to Mr Perdue’s uncle, Guilford Kryska, who had disappeared from the village of Nurato. , when he was a boy on the Yukon River in western Alaska.

They discovered a wealth of information about others in Morningside’s payment demands for Alaska residents’ homes. Finally, they found her uncle’s name on the patient trust account, showing that the federal government owed him a few cents.

The entry had his patient number, which they used to reveal more about Kriska, including that it was a nun in the village who raped him.

Kryska eventually returned to Fairbanks, and Perdue said he met Kryska once in the 1970s.

“He was what we would now call mildly retarded,” she says. Although he could read and write, his life skills were few and far between.

Perdue said that when she served as health commissioner from 1994 to 2001, many people approached her with similar stories about long-lost relatives. Her pain has been passed down in her family for decades and is “intergenerational trauma,” Perdue said.

The new database has thousands of names and more names and details are being added. Users may be able to find out when and why a patient was raped, when they were discharged or died, where they were buried, and their death certificate.

The hospital was founded in the late 19th century by Dr. Henry Waldo Coe, first in his home and later on his pastoral farm in Portland. It operated under several names before being called Morningside.

In 1904, it received a government contract to care for mentally ill Alaskans, a contract that lasted until Alaska gained statehood in 1959 and began building its own mental health facilities.

A wide variety of Alaskans gathered there, including miners, housewives, Alaska Natives, Juneau co-founders, and Fairbanks bankers. Causes include postpartum depression, cabin fever, epilepsy, poisoning, and syphilis. The youngest patient was 6 weeks old. The oldest person was 96 years old.

Parents sometimes threatened their children to take action by telling them about the hospital. “Inside, Outside, Morningside” became a common phrase to describe whether people could stay, move, or commit to Alaska.

Evidence uncovered by former judge Steinkruger suggests that letters written by patients were likely never sent, and mail addressed to them was never received.

Morningside’s treatment of residents came under intense public scrutiny by the 1950s. Congressional hearings and public outrage ultimately forced him to shut it down in 1968. A shuttered shopping mall off Interstate 205 now stands on the original site.

Cordengree recorded burial locations in several cemeteries from Portland and obtained 1,200 Oregon death certificates.

“I’m just glad I happened to be here when someone needed help,” Cordingley said. For about 15 years, he has volunteered at a local cemetery, helping clean gravestones and decipher obscure burial records.

In 2012, he began creating his own database to help families find missing loved ones. He built his three virtual cemeteries at the following locations: www.findagrave.com, death certificate, burial location, and sometimes a photo of the patient. One virtual site is dedicated alaska native Second person to die at Morningside other patients and the third is children of alaska He died at another facility in Oregon, Baby Louise Haven.

Cordingley found Lucy McCormick’s grave marker in Portland and informed her family, who were stunned and then watched as she was disinterred.

Ms. McCormick’s aunt, Fairbanks furrier Helen Callahan, claimed she was “mentally insane,” and after a jury confirmed Ms. Callahan’s diagnosis, Ms. McCormick was admitted to Morningside on April 5, 1930. Records show that he did.

In January 1931, doctors performed a hysterectomy. McCormick died within weeks of an infection following the surgery.

Wally Carlo said his father and uncle never talked about McCormick and never knew what happened to her. After Cordingly found her grave, her family decided to take her home, Carlo said.

On a beautiful fall day, her relatives set out on four boats on the Yukon River to take her to Rampart, where she was born. They were escorted by eagles and swans and “it was like a salute to Grandma Lucy,” he said. She was buried on a hill overlooking a village of 29 people and a river.

“Never give up hope and try to get them back where they belong,” he said. “Until they are found and brought home, their souls will not rest.”

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New database: www.lostalaskans.com Previous blog: www.Morningsidehospital.com Alaska Natives who died at Morningside: https://www.findagrave.com/virtual-cemetery/552288 Other patients who died at Morningside: https://www.findagrave.com/virtual-cemetery/152302