Finding Lillian: The lost patients of Washington’s abandoned mental hospital

This amazing man is researching, finding, and marking these graves deserves help and recognition.

My grandmother's cousin was a deaf mute child who was violent out of sheer frustration. Her parents died and her grandmother was incapable of caring for her. She was put in a place called a home for idiots. So sad that little girl. I have pictures of her but cannot find any records anywhere of her life or death. It makes my heart ache for her.

Back then the husbands can just put them in these places to get rid of them no questions asked. Deplorable

I already know this will be a sad story. Wevtook care of an old gent for 22 years. He was 92 when he passed peacefully here at our home. He spent around 50 years in an old timey institution thru a misdiagnosis. He told me “people disappeared from there” “they were mean down there” He was made to milk cows there for years in their dairy .Despite that horrid time in his life, he was a sweet fun gentle soul . Im soo glad we could give him a safe secure peaceful life in his latter years . We miss him immeasurably.

"She was real." My heart is breaking.

I am the 'historian' for my family and what this man is doing is SO important and meaningful. What an amazing project, and an amazing perspective these folks have.

I didn’t catch the gentleman’s name uncovering the graves, but you Sir should be commended for your contribution to history, and genealogy but more importantly out of respect for those souls and for the love of family that came from them. So few people now understand the importance of this. I do. Thank you ❤

What a sick husband to have his wife committed for supposedly getting pregnant with a child that is not his! In all honesty.. I bet if they were to do a paternity test It would prove that he is the father! I wouldn’t at all be surprised if he wasn’t the one who gave her the syphilis too smh

Lillian looks like she was quite beautiful. It’s so sad how her life turned out, but at least she has some descendants who care about her, even though they never met her. That’s beautiful, actually, when someone cares about a person they never met, never knew in real life. It looks as if some patients at this hospital were totally forgotten, not even buried properly with labels of any kind on their graves. Heartbreaking. What is so amazing, is that many people today are more sympathetic, more caring about these long-dead people, than were some of those who knew them in life, and could have helped them.

We need to start raising compassionate understanding people again instead of hate filled greedy ones.

My grandmother's uncle died there in 1935 and Lemley took care of the remains and they had the records available in under 5 minutes when I called. He's buried with his wife in Evergreen Washelli. I learned from the archives he was committed twice, once when his wife died and lastly when his twin died in front of him. They were apple orchardists who had a house in Wenatchee Heights. He had "Involution melancholy" "depressive kind".

How many women had postpartum ended up in places like this.

It wouldnt surprise me to learn that Lillian contracted the std from her husband (whod cheated on her) who indeed DID impregnate her with his baby. Back then we women had no voice, like this lady says! The average woman would absolutely lose her damn mind if shed discovered her husband gave her tthis std and also impregnated her but accused her of running on him. Any of us would lose our damn minds over such a thing today!! ANY of us would! A bit of Lillian is in everyone of us 🎉😅( if what i think happened, happened to her)!!

I wept. I wept for Lillian having contracted syphilis, and being simultaneously institutionalized and thrown away. I wept for both joy and sorrow for her heroic great-grandaughter's wonderful love that resulted in this story and Lillian's rebirth. God bless the sweet souls of this story.

That’s why our homeless population has exploded. Facilities like this all over America were closed 50 years ago.

My relative was self admitted to the Hudson River State Hospital near Poughkeepsie, New York in the 1950's for clinical depression. His daughters recount that he was told to "stay busy".....he was a quiet, thoughtful, talented man....wood worker, artist, master carpenter, working with his hands. This asylum was similar in that the architects were the same men. It was a "small independent city" with a working farm, with a gorgeous park like campus that we would drive through on our Sunday drives. He decided that there were residents far sicker, he left, but always lived with the spector of depression. In his case, he had a loving family that took care of him after discharge...he was able to work and do wood working. My family cherish many pieces of his work. May they RIP.

And we can thank President Reagan for the mass closing of residential mental hospitals, and the massive increase of unhoused unemployable people that continues to this day.

So glad someone is making the effort to remember those lost to history.

Wow what a wonderful man to do this. 😢😢😢 1700 people wow .

My mother was institutionalized when I was six months old. Back then she was diagnosed with manic depression. Later, it was changed to schizophrenic. She was institutionalized up until her death. I wasn't made aware of her passing until about a decade later. Like I, she was lost in the system.