The patient database is still our top priority. We expect the receive funding (through a partnership of the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority and Access Alaska) before the end of the summer

We are very excited about two record groups in particular:

Letters Received and Related Records concerning the Alaskan Insane, compiled 1900-1911: This series consists of letters received, copies of contracts, telegrams, vouchers, lists of patients, and other records.  Some of the correspondence refers to policy, but most of it concerns the custody and care of mental patients, discharge of cured individuals, and related topics.

Record Group 126, Records of the Office of the Territories: This record group includes 26 boxes pertaining to the care of the insane in Alaska. 

The records will undoubtedly provide more information about the operation of Morningside Hospital and its relationship with the federal government. Of course, our greatest hope is that the boxes at the National Archives contain patient lists. If the patient lists are not there, we’re out of ideas and pretty much at a deadend.

Please contact us if there are particular records that interest you. Let’s all keep our fingers crossed.

For now, here’s what we know:

Cemeteries: Over the years, Morningside Hospital patients were buried in multiple cemeteries. During the 1940’s and 1950’s, Multnomah Park Pioneer Cemetery and Greenwood Hills Cemetery were the sites of patient burials. We located a few patient graves at Greenwood Hills, but most are unmarked or grown-over. Multnomah Park Pioneer Cemetery is still in operation but Greenwood Hills is basically closed to new burials and is managed by a group of people living in the neighborhood. Karen and I visited Greenwood Hills Cemetery and I’ll post more on it in the future.

Other Possible Sources of Information:

• Multnomah County Funeral Homes (http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ormultno/Cemeteries/funeral.htm)
• Multnomah County Cemeteries (http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ormultno/Cemeteries/listing.htm)

Genealogy Resources: Out of the resources below, the Family Search site, which is maintained by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is the best and most complete.

• Family Search (http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp)
• Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com/)
• Heritage Trail Pres: Oregon Death Index (http://www.heritagetrailpress.com/Death_Index/)
• Internment.net (http://www.interment.net/)

You can view these lists here: 1920 US Census

When we posted the 1955 Department of the Interior Report, we pointed out some names that appeared on both that list and the Wickersham Papers. With the addition of the 1920 US Census list there are even more names that appear on multiple lists, helping to fill out the profile of some Morningside patients.

For example:

• Emile Johnson appears in both the Wickersham Papers and the 1920 US Census. The Census tells us he’s a 31-year-old, single, white male from Sweden who speaks English but cannot read or write. The Wickersham Papers tells us he was committed from Valdez on 11/11/1912 as patient #439. Using information from the two different sources we can compilate some additional data too: if he was 31 in 1920 (from the Census), that would make him ~23 when he was committed in 1912.
• Charles Benson appears in all three of the current lists. He was committed 2/16/1915 from Ketchikan with patient # 553. The US Census reports that he was 44 years old and single in 1920, and lists him as a literate, white male from Sweden.
• G. Osawa is on both the Wickersham Papers and the US Census. The Census tells us that G. Osawa was a 43-year-old single Japanese man who could read and write, and spoke English. Wickersham Papers tell us he was committed 5/10/1911 from Wrangel with patient # 355

There are many, many more entries like these.

Deborah is currently working on typing the hand-written 1930 US Census, and it will be posted as soon as it’s complete.

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.

One of the things we’d really like to do is collect and make available the names of as many Morningside patients as possible, with the hope that families can find long-lost relatives and fill in the empty spaces on family trees.

The first installment is a list of all patients admitted to Morningside from 1904 to 1916. This information came from the papers of Judge James Wickersham, who was the Alaska delegate to Congress in the early 1900s. The spreadsheet includes the information as it was originally organized, and then a series of spreadsheets organized by admission date, disposition and the community the person came from in Alaska.

We also have patient lists from the 1920 and 1930 U.S. Census records. We’ll post them as soon as we get them into spreadsheets.