List of reasons for admission to mental asylum 1864 to 1899

[dixiegrrrrl]

17. So did one of my relative.

My Grandmother, born in 1898, had a brother, named John...and 6 sisters.
Big family, as was common turn of the century.
And, as was common, not rich, so the brother left home aged 17.
and no one heard from him again.
This was just before the Depression, and of course during it work as hard to find.
and it is an Irish family, and they drank.

The missing brother was part of family lore.
When my Grandmother died, in 1983, her oldest son had to probate the estate, and had to account for all the relatives, including the missing brother.
Damned if he did not find him, too.
The brother had been locked up in the state mental hospital, 60 miles away from the city where all the family lived, sometime in the early 1930's..
He had had severe case of Dt's, was a serious alcoholic.
And, back then, once you were locked up, and with no family or help, you stayed in the hospital.
apparently he did not know where the family had moved to, after he left home.
He died in the late 1930's there.