I met with Mary, the archivist for Greenwood Hill Cemetery and have the following to report:

Burials of Morningside patients at Greenwood Hills Cemetery (GHC)  began in February of 1942 after GH opened a new section.  Morningside burials were mainly placed in Sections 7 and 8 which is a narrow strip of land between the G.A.R. Cemetery and the ravine.    It is currently unknown how many burials took place in those sections of GHC.  Sections 7 and 8 today are overgrown and/or wooded.  Section 8 may not contain many burials due to the fact that the ground is saturated by a nearby spring.  A recent attempt by a landscape company to clean up Section 8 ended when the equipment they were using became mired in the mud, even in late summer.  There are Morningside burials in other sections of GHC which, though recorded, have yet to be documented.

As far as can be determined, the last Morningside patient to be interred at Multnomah Park was Reinhard  Effinger, who died 5 Feb 1942.  His marker has been located and documented.  No Morningide patient who died after him can be located and documented at Multnomah Cemetery.

The first patient to be interred in Section 7 of GHC would have been Serge Samsonal.  All subsequent burials of Morningside patients took place at GHC.   Serge Samsonal, Archie Brown, James Ebena, Charlie Waters and Charles Neiman are listed on the database for Multnomah Park, but the locations given for their burials are either non-existent or were full prior to their deaths.  James Ebena is listed in the Multnomah Cemetery database as being interred in either F, 91 or F, 191.  However, F, 91 was filled by 1925 and according to cemetery records, Section F, 191, although platted for burials, was never used. The fact that F, 191 is part of an access a road underscores this fact.  It is my belief that graves for the above-named persons were arranged for and entered into the books of the cemetery but the place of interment was changed when the weather improved enough to deliver the bodies to GHC.

I also had an opportunity to spend time with the records at Riverview Cemetery.  Interments of Morningside patients at Riverview began with Max Schmidt who died in May of 1923 and ended with Elizabeth Lyon who died in May of 1926.  The section of the cemetery used for Morningside interments, Section 113,  was severely damaged in a mud slide in the 60’s as has been previously reported.  Several Morningside patients were interred in other Riverview locations that were not affected by the slide.  Inspection of those sites will occur soon weather permitting.

Attached hereto and incorporated herein by reference please find the Excel spreadsheet for the Morningside burials.  This spreadsheet is far from complete but it reflects the material found in the quarterly reports and info from death certificates obtained from the State Archives in Salem.   You will note that the earliest burials in the spreadsheet are not documented.  This is because the location of the early interments, Rose City Cemetery, has not been very helpful  in this discovery process.  I think this is mainly due to the fact that their burial records are not digitized and thus a large request for burial locations could take a large amount of staff time.

With some of the patients, we simply do not know what became of their remains.  If the mortuary that handled the remains is willing to assist in this discovery process then those mysteries may be solved.

I am indebted to the individuals who assist in this research:  In addition to Ellen, Sally and Robin, my local assistants are Mary at Greenwood Hills; Burt at Riverview and Dave, my partner-in-research at Multnomah Park.

September 19, 2011: I ventured over to Riverview and Greenwood Hills today with the hope of finding at least one Morningside headstone.

Riverview:  The area where most of the Morningside burials occurred, between 1924 and 1929, underwent a massive landslide sometime in the 60′s.  It could have happened during the October 1962 Columbus Day storm when many large trees at Riverview went down.  The area on the map, section113 was dramatically altered as part of a large earth movement toward a gulley which undermined two roads and a large retaining wall.  Any remains that were in that area may have been either covered over by the slide or by the large amount of concrete, rock and dirt fill that went into the hillside to stabilize it after the slide.  If remains were exposed during the slide, I am sure the Riverview staff collected them and reinterred them in an area away from another potential landslide.

In Section 11, I attempted to locate the grave of one Herbert Hurdman, a Morningside patient that died in 1929.  I was unable to locate a headstone for him.

Greenwood Hills:  Recent hot weather has made the ground dry and thus very difficult to probe.  I was able to locate several flat concrete markers.  I don’t know if the markers I located are for Morningside patients.  It is my belief Morningside patients were interred at Greenwood Hills beginning mostly in 1942/43 until the hospital closed, but I do not as yet have access to the quarterly reports beyond 1931 and I have not been able to build a list of former patients who may be interred at Greenwood Hills.

The Volunteer Coordinator for Friends of Greenwood Hills Cemetery, Mary, is unavailable, due to her work schedule, to assist in this project until sometime in October.  I will report on our meeting once it occurs. 

Multnomah Park:  Attempted to locate grave of Ilook Dayton d: 1942 – records have him in either C129 or F129 – so far unsuccessful.

Attempts to locate graves of Archie Brown and James Ebena continue..  Searched in Section E in an area that was filled in during April and May of 1942 – nothing yet…(dammit!!)   Archie Brown is listed as being interred in F189, along with Charlie Waters, but there IS no F189 . . . !     My previous assertion that James Ebena was interred in F, 191 was in error.  My apologies.

During the annual conference, I believe there was mention of a Letter of Introduction that would allow me to interview mortuary and cemetery staff in pursuit of information of Morningside patients.  A letter of this nature would be very helpful in this work.

Rose City Cemetery – There is a large section that was used for indigent interments from 1904 until about 1940.  A check on some names I thought might be there came up empty.  Another trip or two to the State Archives may offer some death certificates listing Rose City as place of interment.

Oregon State Hospital – Unclaimed Cremains – The remains of Morningside patient Rasmus Olsen Gjerde who died in June of 1941 are being held at the hospital.

Cremations:  The possibility that the bodies of some Morningside patients were incinerated has been confirmed.  Lena May Dackins, who died in 1941,  was cremated at Riverview Abbey.  Her cremains were held there until 1960 at which time they were scattered in the woods behind the Abbey along with many other sets of unclaimed cremains.  It is unknown at this time why her remains were incinerated instead of being interred at either Multnomah Park or Greenwood Hills.  If Holman & Son has a file for her, it might give a reason.  I believe other patients’ remains may have been incinerated, but this is as yet, unconfirmed.

Autopsies:  I note on some death certificates that the remains of Morningside patients, especially after 1939, were subjected to autopsy.  I wonder if this was a requirement of the contract with Dept. of Interior or ???

I am still very much enjoying the challenge of searching for the final resting places of Morningside patients.  As former patients are located, they will be added to the virtual cemetery on find-a-grave.com.

They are relying on two sources of information in their search.  They’re using the quarterly reports submitted to the Department of the Interior that list the names of patients who died, the cause of death, and the burial location. The Oregon Death Index has also been useful in finding burial locations. The certificate below is from the Virtual Cemetery site. It notes that Rita Lane, from Nome, died of pneumonia at Morningside when she was 14 years old. The burial location, Multnomah Cemetery, is at the bottom of the right side of the death certificate.

Lubova Pontelaief was born in 1907 and was admitted to Morningside Hospital from Sitka on June 24, 1934. A hospital quarterly report from 1935 included this information about her:

1550 (Patient Number) Lubova Pontelaiev: admitted June 24, 1934  White.  Russian.  Alaska born.  Female, Single.  Age 27.  No occupation. Dementia precox, hebephrinic form.  History indicates mental disorder existed for about 10 years.  Pc. (Physical Condition) fair.

Her name appears in a list of patients from 1955, but from there all we know is that she acquired a Social Security Number in Alaska in 1965 and died in October, 1977. At the time of her death, she was living in area code 97217, the Bridgeton neighborhood in Portland. She’s buried in the Portland’s Rose City Cemetery.

Aleksandr wants to know what happened to her after Morningside and who buried her. Please contact the blog if you have any information about Lubova or ideas for information sources we should pursue.

The site includes information on how to claim cremains if you can prove you are a relative. The 6 Alaskans who died there between 1900 and 1903 were not on the list. Thanks to Eric Cordingly of the Friends of Multnomah Park Cemetery for sharing this link.

Between 1901 and 1903, 69 Alaskans were sent to there, 31 of whom were later transferred to Morningside. Six men died while in Salem, including:

• William Johnson, d.23 Aug 1901 (age 30, b. England)
• Thomas A. Wilson, d. 9 Jan 1902 (age ___, b. England)
• Alexander H Carpenter, d. 30 Mar 1902 ( age ___, b. ___)
• Robert Sweet, d. 9 Nov 1902 (age 48, b. American)
• Wm. Ukas, d. 24 Jun 1903 (age ___, b. Alaska)
• Louis Bronson, d. 27 Jun 1903 (age 68, b. Germany)

On January 11, 1902, the Oregon Statesman published Thomas A. Wilson’s obituary. They reported that he committed suicide by jumping from a third floor window. The article went on to say:

“Wilson was committed to the Insane Asylum from Alaska, and he had recently shown marked signs of improvement. When realizing that he was in an insane asylum, he was very much distressed. He had thus far shown no signs of suicidal tendencies, and was generally considered a model patient.”

One of the interesting aspects of this is that the six men who died at the Oregon State Insane Asylum may be among those whose remains are in the copper canisters I wrote about on September 15. Another lead to follow the next time I’m in Oregon.

There were 1,539 burials in the Asylum Cemetery between 1883 to 1913. In 1913 all the bodies were exhumed, cremated, and the ashes were put in copper canisters. In 2009, the American Journal of Psychiatry reported: “A grim discovery was made by a group of state legislators touring the facility in 2004. The cremated remains of more than 3,000 patients who died at the hospital from the late 1880s to the mid-1970s were found in corroding copper canisters in a storage room, the so-called “room of lost souls.” They were the remnants of a time when mental illness was so stigmatizing that families abandoned patients.”

There were a number of attempts to connect remains to family members and to honor or formally recognize them in some way. However, at this point, they are still stored at the hospital.

The director of Morningside sent a letter to the Secretary of the Interior each time a patient died. On March 1, 1937, Wayne Coe sent the following letter to Secretary of the Interior about Joe Falardeau, whose grave is included in the Virtual Cemetary:

Sir:

Permit us to inform you herewith that our patient, Joe Falardeau No. 1269 who was admitted into our hospital, June 14, 1929 from Cordova died February 26th, 1937. The cause of death was Cerebral Thrombosis. The body was turned over to Holman & Lutz of this city for burial in Multnomah Cemetery.

Respectfully yours,

Wayne W. Coe

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