WHO Lies Beneath: The Asylum WOUB Public Media

This is the last episode of season 2, and we are going to introduce you to some people in upstate New York, partially inspired by what they heard on this podcast, who are doing the hard, sometimes tedious work, of unlocking the information to tell the stories of those buried in an unmarked graveyard in their community. They are partnering with this podcast to tell the stories of some of those individuals for season 3 of WHO Lies Beneath.

Jane Johnson is a pretty common name. So common in fact that there are two people buried on the asylum grounds with that name.

Prudence Parkinson Kincade’s story was a mystery to her descendants until they discovered that she was buried at the Athens Asylum and reached out to us to help put some of the pieces together. We learned that Kincade was institutionalized for approximately 25 years and was part of a high profile transfer of what the newspapers called “lunatic and imbecile inmates” to the Athens Asylum in 1904.

Sometimes people ended up at the Athens Asylum because none of the other ways society dealt with those who were deemed difficult seemed to work. James Douglas and William Black appear to be two of those people. We also talk with Nora Steele about her research into an Asylum Newspaper and the inmates who wrote stories for it.

According to the Old Athens Lunatic Asylum gravebook, there were three babies who died at the Asylum and weren’t claimed by their families. One of them who was buried in the Asylum cemeteries was a baby girl who is only identified as a baby with her mother’s last name. Cheri and Doug, along with Ohio University Professor Emeritus of Social Medicine Jackie Wolf talk about what might have happened to the baby and her mother, Ruth, during their time at the Old Athens Lunatic Asylum. We also hear from a Lancaster, Ohio historian who is working to preserve the headstones and life stories of those buried in his community.

Amanda Smith and Levi Mercer are connected by more than just the fact that they both are buried in cemetery 1 of the Old Athens Lunatic Asylum. They are also connected by blood, as the two were father and daughter. Amanda and Levi were both institutionalized at different times. Levi was admitted to the Asylum seven years after his daughter, Amanda, died there. We don’t know if he knew that his daughter was buried on the grounds under a number or if he had any idea he’d likely join her there. But one of his present day ancestors has been conducting research trying to put all the pieces together to tell both of their stories.