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.

Syndicate Enriched from Insane Asylum
Juneau, Alaska. March 27 – A report criticising the Morningside sanitarium at Portland Ore., where Alaska insane are cared for under contract with the government, was returned yesterday by the judicial committee of the territorial legislature. The report demanded “that conditions there, by which the syndicate is enriched $30,000 annually, be improved.”

The report says: “The ninety insane are in cramped and crowded quarters, with no reasonable space for living or sleeping. Some of the patients sleep on the floor.” Copies of the report were ordered forwarded to President Wilson, Secretary Lane, and Governor Strong.

Portland, Ore., March 27 – A denial that there was any ground for statements contained in the report of the judiciary committee to the Alaska territorial legislature critising the Morningside Sanitarium, where Alaska insane patients are cared for, was made by Dr. Viola May Coe, one of the owners of the sanitarium.

“The sanitarium is inspected by representatives of the government twice a year,” said Dr. Coe, “and the patients are well cared for. We have accomodations for 200 patients and at present there are but 98 there, so the charge that we are overcrowded is untrue.”

A picture showing the Morningside Hospital era 1925

Morningside Hospital was located on the current site of Mall 205, a community shopping center off Interstate 205 in East Portland.

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.

It appears that the early patients were primarily miners and ordinary adults who were determined “insane” by the territorial legal system and probably deemed a threat to public safety. Later, the census shows many more Alaska Natives and children sent to the facility–probably under the guise that they needed the care offered.

Persons sent there were considered “insane”, but much later it was determined that persons with mental illness, developmental disabilities, Alzheimer’s and related dementias, and chronic alcoholics were included in the population. Also, there are numerous stories of people leaving the hospital after short stays and being perfectly fine (according to community norms) upon their return, so they likely had no clinical diagnosis at all.