By Ellen | January 25, 2012
During territorial days, US Federal Marshals in Alaska made regular trips South, first delivering prisoners to McNeil Island Prison in Washington, then taking patients to Morningside Hospital. Warren Gohl is part of a group attempting to locate the graves of Alaska Natives who died while serving sentences at McNeil Island. Please leave a comment if [...]
By Ellen | January 22, 2012
Steve B. was a patient at Morningside Hospital in the mid-1960s. He is the first former patient to contact us and provides a look at life at Morningside from the patient’s perspective. If you have a question for Steve, please leave a comment and we’ll pass them along to him. By Steve B. During my [...]
By Ellen | January 19, 2012
The following article is by Marylou Elton, our volunteer researcher who lives in Washington, DC. Marylou spends most Wednesdays digging through Morningside Hospital administrative records at the National Archives II. The documents she used for this post were from Record Group 126 at the NA2. There are links to the letters at the end of [...]
By Ellen | January 7, 2012
Katharine Hodikoff was admitted to Morningside Hospital from the Aleutian Islands on October 6, 1913. Her diagnosis was, “acute mania, irritable, resentful, improved, inclined to suicide, industrious, fair physical condition.” She apparently improved over time, so much so that she was discharged in August 1916. A few days before she left Morningside, Dr. Henry Coe, [...]
By Ellen | December 2, 2011
Joseph Von Kowski was adjudged insane in Tanana on March 13, 1911 and admitted to Morningside Hospital on April 15, 1911. He only stayed at the hospital for a short time, escaping on July 15. He subsequently wrote a letter to the matron of the Fairbanks Jail alleging that Morningside was “worst than any slaughterhouse [...]
By Ellen | December 2, 2011
Last month, Eric Cordingley sent an update on his search for Morningside Hospital patient burial sites. He’s using records from the National Archive 2 and the Oregon State Archives (death certificates) to identify the cemeteries. Unfortunately, the graves are difficult to locate because the cemeteries no longer have records of the burials. In October, Eric [...]
By Ellen | November 18, 2011
Henry Waldo Coe and his partners (the Sanitarium Company) began providing mental health care to Alaskans in 1904. Prior to winning their first contract, they operated Crystal Springs Sanitarium which provided care to private-pay patients. The pictures below show how the hospital changed as it morphed into Morningside Hospital, going from private-pay patients to government [...]
By Ellen | November 18, 2011
We’ve amassed a large collection of material from our research at the National Archives II in Maryland. The documents are primarily administrative correspondence between Morningside Hospital and administrators at the U S Department of the Interior Office of Territorial Affairs. These documents include information on patients (admissions, discharges, diagnoses, deaths, citizenship, assets, etc.), complaints and [...]
By Ellen | October 14, 2011
Most of the patient information on the blog is from the National Archives II, in College Station, MD. The Department of the Interior (DOI) contracted with Morningside Hospital for the care of Alaskans judged to be “insane”. Morningside submitted monthly reports to the DOI that were essentially invoices, which also included patient admission and discharge [...]
By Ellen | October 7, 2011
Eric Cordingley of the Friends of Multnomah Park Cemetery continues to look for Morningside Hospital patient burial sites. His search has expanded to include at least 5 cemeteries since his first discovery of patient graves at Multnomah Park. Last month he sent this report on his continued pursuit of the final resting places of Morningside [...]
