“My mother worked as a chef/cook at Morningside Hospital from the early 1950′s until 1965. I also worked there myself on a couple of occasions.  As a high school summer job,  I worked in the kitchen for a couple of months.

Beginning in 1962,  I worked as a psychiatric aide–working nights while I finished college.  I remember well–though maybe not always by name–many of the patients on the ward I worked.  This was a ward mainly for men with acute psychosis.  Most were in treatment focused on returning them home, so there was always a turnover, with some patients staying only a month or so.   Of course there were some patients so chronically ill or so developmentally disabled they were essentially permanent residents.

It was a fascinating place to work and an interesting life experience.  The history of the place along with stories of the patients and staff  could take its place right alongside “One Flew Over the Cukcoo’s Nest”. During my time at Morningside,  I experienced some mental health milestones,  not all of them necessarily positive.  For example the use of psychiartic drugs, and their overuse.   Only after a patient’s death did they finally discontinue the use of insulin shock therapy.  On the other hand–and not just owing to heavy doses of thorozine–there were no locked wards and the use of restraints was absolutely forbidden.

The hospital had its own farm and a prize dairy herd, so they raised much of the food for both patients and employees many of whom lived in apartments on the premesis.”

In a second email Charles wrote, “I’m happy to participate in any way I can to make sure the story of Morningside hospital gets told. Though the hospital grounds was a huge piece of land on the edge of the city and on a main street, few people in Portland were even  aware of its existance.  For one thing, it didn’t look like a hospital.   It was comprised mostly of wood frame buildings pretty much  shielded from view  by a acre or so of park-like trees and lawns at its Stark Street entrance.  When seen from 92nd, avenue, it was for all appearances just a nicely tended truck farm..

I was in my early twenties when I worked there last and was probably the youngest psychiatric aide at the time.  Most of the other employees must be getting well up in years.  The same is true for the patients–at least the ones I knew.  There were children and younger adolescents on other wards, but I had little contact with them.  I only know of one other person–an old college friend who worked there for a few months–who has personal knowledge of the place.”

Over the past two weeks in Portland we’ve unearthed quite a bit more backdrop on the search for the burial locations of Morningisde patients. Working closely with Robin Renfroe and her sister Peggy, from Salem, we visited the State of Oregon Archives to search for death certificates for over 150 people. Robin had done research on the Wickersham Paper, US Census reports and Morningside Admittance lists to unearth as many Alaska Native people (or known family names) as possible.

OR Archives, Salem

We have now searched all 121 names on the Wickersham list (pre 1916) as well as around 50 more Alaska Native people reported from 1920 to 1957. It is not complete but an important start.  Not all of them had a death certificate, but most did. The certificates are telling, from full names, to cause of death, burial location and family members if known. Those lines were almost always empty…. It was very sad to see how many were listed with epilepsy as cause of death.

Robin

Peggy and Sally

“For nearly sixty years, Morningside Hospital sat on a 47-acre parcel in Hazlewood, at the junction of SE Stark Street and 96th Avenue. Formerly agricultural land, the site was developed as a psychiatric hospital complex and working farm in 1910. After WWII, many of the farmers in the surrounding area retired and their land was developed into suburban communities. The rising population increased consumer demand and the under-construction interstate freeway promised easy access; in 1970 the site was redeveloped as Mall 205.

The hospital, founded in 1899 by Dr. Henry Waldo Coe, was originally run out of his family’s home. In 1905, Coe purchased the Massachusetts Building from the Lewis and Clark Exposition and moved it from the exposition site in NW Portland to Mt. Tabor, where it was converted into a psychiatric hospital. Five years later, Dr. Coe moved operations to what would be its final location, a 47 acre site in East Portland bounded by SE 96th and 102nd avenues, and Stark and Main streets. During its early years, the hospital went by several names including Dr. Coe’s Nervous Sanitarium, Mindease, Mt. Tabor Sanitarium and Crystal Springs Sanitarium.

In 1904, Morningside was awarded a contract from the U.S. Department of the Interior to care for mentally ill and mentally handicapped patients from the territory of Alaska, who would constitute the bulk of the hospital’s patients throughout its tenure. Between 1905 and 1968, nearly 5,000 patients were admitted to Morningside, not including the roughly 40 admitted monthly on behalf of Multnomah County, which used the hospital for emergency care.

After Dr. Henry Waldo Coe’s death in 1927, Morningside was taken over by his son, Wayne Coe. Although not a medical doctor, Wayne Coe acted as hospital administrator and eventually as Chairman of the Henry Waldo Coe Foundation.

In 1955, Morningside came under attack after a bill was introduced by U.S. Rep. Edith Green (D) of Oregon, to transfer care of Alaskan patients to Alaska. Questions of financial impropriety raised during hearings lead to an investigation of the hospital by the U.S. General Accounting Office in 1956. By this time, Wayne Coe’s son Henry Coe, had entered the family business. The Coes were accused of using hospital funds for personal expenses, including trips to South Africa and Mexico, a beach property in Gearhart and a ranch in Stanfield, Oregon. The Coes were also accused of “outrageous abuse of privilege” including the use of patient labor for home and hospital building and maintenance, under the guise of occupational therapy. The Coes denied the charges, defended the hospital practices and called the investigation “rude, uncivil and insulting.” Ultimately, no criminal charges were filed and Morningside was fully reaccredited in 1957. By 1964, Morningside’s reputation had recovered to the degree that it was featured in an Oregonian article about its success as an “open hospital.” Under the open hospital model, patients were controlled through sedatives rather than lock and key.

The Alaskan Mental Health Enabling Act was passed in 1956 and Alaskan patients began being moved from Morningside to new facilities in their home state. The Coes attempted to reorient the hospital. In 1960 they announced that the “transfer of 210 patients from Morningside will enable the Portland psychiatric hospital to begin taking patients locally.” The Oregonian reported “Hospital officials feel that Morningside’s present facilities and rehabilitation programs geared to both mentally ill and mentally retarded can be adapted to private patients with a few changes.” Morningside was never able to recover from the loss of Alaskan patients, however, and attempts by Henry Coe to find a buyer who would continue to use the facilities for medical purposes were unsuccessful.

In the summer of 1968, the last three patients were discharged and Morningside prepared to close its doors. The site was sold to Lenrich Associates, a New York based property developer, which, in partnership with Interstate Department Stores, redeveloped the land as Mall 205.”

Sources: Mills, Amy C, A Cultural History of the Neighborhoods Along the I-205 Light Rail Project, 2007; Hawkins, William J. and William F. Willingham, Classic Houses of Portland, 1999; Sullivan, Ann, “Morningside Hospital Closes After 58 Years of Caring for Mentally Ill,” Oregonian, June 30, 1968; various articles, Oregonian, 1920-1968; Sanitarium Company, Care of the Insane of the Territory of Alaska, 1925.

You can view these lists here: 1955 Department of the Interior Report

The Wall of Names is sorted alphabetically by last name, and then by first name, rather than by source. The intended reason for this was to organize the names in a way that makes it easier for someone researching their family history or looking for a specific name to find the name they’re looking for. The other effect of sorting the names like this is that names that appears on more than one list group together. In adding the names from the Department of the Interior Report from March 1955, I stumbled upon a few patients who’s names appear in Judge Wickersham’s list from Morningside in 1916 and in the 1955 DotI Report.

• Robert Belling is listed in the Wickersham Papers as admitted 6/23/1911 from Nome with admission # 359. The 1955 DotI Report includes a Robert Belling, 44 years later. Unfortunately the 1955 report does not include any further information about Robert Belling.
• Charles Benson appears in the Wickersham Papers as having been admitted from Ketchikan on February 16, 1915 with admission # 553. According to the Department of the Interior Report from 1955, 40 years later, there was still a patient named Charles Benson. Again the 1955 report does not include any other information about Charles Benson.
• David Hull is in the Wickersham Papers, admitted from Nome 6/29/1908 with patient # 201, and present in 1916. DotI report lists a David Hull in 1955, 47 years later.
• W.T.C. Jensen is shown in the Wickersham Papers, admitted from Juneau 8/30/1914 with patient # 534, and present in 1916. DotI lists W.T.C Jensen in 1955, 41 years later.
• G. McLain appears in the Wickersham Papers, admitted from Ft. Gibbon with patient # 476 in August, 1913, and Present in 1916. DotI has a Granville McLain in 1955, 42 years after G. McLain’s admission.
• Carl Miller is listed in the Wickersham Papers as admitted from Ketchikan in October 1909, but “Eloped” 10/22/1910. However, a Carl Miller does also show up in the 1955 DotI report.
• Richard Harris is shown in the Wickersham Papers as admitted 8/19/1905 from Juneau, and deceased 10/10/1907. The DotI report also includes a Richard Harris.
• J. Hubbard is listed in the Wickersham Papers as admitted 4/13/1913 from Juneau, and deceased 10/2/1914. The DotI report includes a John Hubbard
• There are potentially more, as both patient lists are missing first or last names from patients, or have names off by one or two characters which could be misspellings. There are probably others that I overlooked. As we add lists, more duplicate names will appear, adding to the ability to cross-reference names.

It is probably reasonable to assume that some of these patients were sent home and later re-admitted to Morningside, but there is currently not enough information to expand on. There is also the possibility that some these records are not referencing the same patients; the DotI report doesn’t give much information to work with, and there is no way to know if these are the same persons or if they just share names. Given the population of Alaska at the time, duplicate names may have been somewhat rare, but as the final two in that list show, there are records indicating that over the course of Morningside Hospital’s operations there were patients who shared the same names.

Even if some of the names that appear on both lists are duplicate names, and some of the rest are patients who were sent home and later re-admitted, it seems possible that at least a few patients spent upwards of 40 years at Morningside Hospital. Hopefully we’ll be able to make things more clear as we collect additional patient lists and get them into spreadsheets.

“The Mental Health Trust History Project Jukebox offers insight into the long struggle to provide quality mental health services in Alaska from the perspective of people who participated. There is discussion about how the mentally ill were treated prior to Statehood when they were sent to Morningside Hospital in Portland, Oregon; how in 1956 Alaska was given one million acres to manage in trust to fund mental health services; a 1982 lawsuit against the State for mismanagement of these lands and funds; the lengthy legal, political, and legislative effort to settle this lawsuit by re-constituting the lands, providing a cash settlement, and creating the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority.

This project was started in 2007 by the Oral History Program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks with funding from the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority.”

The full text for the part of the act relating to, “the care and support of insane persons in the district of Alaska…”, can be found here.

These investigations revealed widespread financial abuse by the Coe family–subverting money intended for care of patients to items of personal gain like trips and art.. And there were substantial questions raised about care. These hearings laid the groundwork for the passage of the Alaska Mental Health Enabling Act of 1956. The enabling act, championed by Alaska Rep Bob Bartlett and Rep Edith Green of Portland set the stage for the termination of the arrangement the federal government had with the Coe Family to use Morningside Hospital.