Update: My Great Great Grandmother Who Spent 30+ Years In A State Mental Hospital

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]I have an update regarding my great-great-grandmother who spent over 30 years of her life in a state mental hospital. Now, this update is actually about her son, John. A couple weeks ago, I shared that I found some paperwork that placed her son, John, in the same state mental hospital as her in 1942.

[00:00:23]The state hospital's name is Mayview State Hospital in Pennsylvania.

[00:00:27]When I found out this information, I immediately went to the Pennsylvania start state archives and requested his records. And those records came today.

[00:00:38]Um if you are new to this story, I have been doing research and on my family, my ancestry research, and I found out earlier this year that my great-great-grandmother spent over 30 years of her life in a state mental hospital. She was a secret. My grandfather was told that she died, and I have been very slowly picking away at this story trying to figure out what happened to her because her, along with thousands of other people and women that this happened to, deserve so much better.

[00:01:08]So, let's get back to John and what I found out today. So, the Mayview's I'm so sorry. The Pennsylvania State Archives emailed me today with his records from Mayview State Hospital.

[00:01:21]Now, he was a um in the army. He was in the army, and he was honorably discharged in November of 1942 straight to Mayview State Hospital.

[00:01:35]Um that was the veteran paperwork that I found for him, and then I went to go request records. So, they sent me an admission log for John that has his name just listed on it, a discharge log, and then this like intake summary for him, which actually gave a lot of information.

[00:01:54]On this intake summary, it says that he was admitted for paranoid schizophrenia.

[00:01:59]And there's some other important details on this document.

[00:02:02]He was in Mayview State Hospital as a inpatient for over uh 4 months. I'm sorry, over 5 months or so. And then it says he was on parole for an additional year.

[00:02:18]Now, I need to research this. I don't know what this means to be paroled from a mental hospital. I I don't know what that entails. If anybody knows, let me know. Um so, he was officially off parole in April of 1944.

[00:02:37]Also on this intake form, it says in the comments that his mother is a patient in that facility.

[00:02:48]So, how I interpret this, although I have no idea if this is right, is that John knew that his mother was in Mayview State Hospital. So, he knew that she was alive and a patient there, and he is probably the one that reported, like, "Hey, by the way, you know, my mom has this history and is in this facility." Which is good to know. I I am I am happy to hear that he knew his mother was alive because as I said earlier, um my grandfather was told that his grandmother Susan was dead. Okay, now we need to get in some more get into some more details because as a nurse and someone who has a real love of history, I when I saw the schizophrenia diagnosis, I immediately thought, like, "How accurate was our diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia in the 1940s?" Just knowing some medical history going into this. So, I did a very brief Google search and got some information. I am not an expert on this. Like I said, this is my brief research as it stands right now. But, I basically Googled like how accurate was the schizophrenia diagnosis in the 1940s.

[00:04:16]And it says that the diagnosis was far less accurate and reliable than it is today, which you know, makes sense. In medicine, we have come a great deal and in mental health care, we have come a long way since then.

[00:04:31]Um, so, let's see. The lack of standard criteria, there was an unlimited understanding of the disorder.

[00:04:38]And it overlapped very frequently with other conditions. So, there was probably misdiagnosis happening a lot with schizophrenia. So, conditions confused with schizophrenia in the 1940s. Bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, narcolepsy, epilepsy, brain tumors, delirium, and I have on here untreated syphilis. Um And that is quite a big list and and there's just so many factors here to consider.

[00:05:20]Now, another thing I want to mention here that um Let me Let me just read this. Sorry. The lack of accurate diagnosis had serious consequences for individuals with schizophrenia.

[00:05:35]Uh, the stigma and mistreatment.

[00:05:36]Schizophrenia was often associated with fear and misunderstanding leading to the stigmatization and inhumane treatment in institutions.

[00:05:45]Okay.

[00:05:47]Um, it also has eugenics practices on here.

[00:05:55]Um the diagnosis of schizophrenia, along with other mental illnesses, were used to justify eugenic practices, including forced sterilization.

[00:06:07]In Nazi Germany, the United States, and Scandinavian nations, they practiced the use of sterilization.

[00:06:18]Now, specifically in Nazi Germany, 73% of Germans with schizophrenia were killed or sterilized. I think it's very important to look at this as a wider picture of what was going on.

[00:06:36]Um so that's why I wanted to include that, because it is uh very complicated and very God, I cry every time. Very devastating.

[00:06:50]Um and something that I really want to make clear here with telling this story, telling my grandma's my great great grandmother Susan's story, now telling John's story, is when we look at the history of humankind, of our species, if we look at it on a timeline, the 1940s was it was yesterday.

[00:07:16]This is not that long ago.

[00:07:19]I know in our everyday life that can feel so distant, so foreign, so foreign to us, right? How they lived their lives. It's not.

[00:07:29]It is yesterday. And I have also shared this in a different video, but I can make a direct line correlation in my own family with the consequences of what happened and the stigma, fear, mistreatment of my family members.

[00:07:52]Here I am in 2025 dealing with it.

[00:08:01]So, um as with sharing Susan's story and now John's story, it's just very, very important to share these stories of normal people and what they experienced and the terrible ways that we used to treat each other and how important it is to look in the past so we can do better moving forward.

[00:08:38]Oh man, I left out a part of the story.

[00:08:40]So, John married a woman [clears throat] named Jenny in 1944. So, the timing of that is very interesting. Now, I found Jenny also as a patient in May View State Hospital in 1950.

[00:08:58]Okay? I requested Jenny's death certificate and I found on her death certificate the diagnosis of schizophrenia as well.

[00:09:10]Um so that's another added layer to the story.

[00:09:19]Um as always, I am so, so genuinely thankful for anyone who sticks around and listens to this story. I think it's really important to share, so thank you.