GOIN’ TO THE POOR FARM

by Kim Vogel Sawyer

When one of my critique partners was a little girl, her mother would bemoan, “If we aren’t careful, we’ll all end up at the poor farm.” She didn’t know what a poor farm was, but the thought of going there scared her and she hoped she wouldn’t have to go. 

My mother tells the story of being instructed to drive my great-grandfather to the poor farm in Marion County when he ran out of money and my grandfather didn’t have room for him in his house. She said she’ll never forget him looking at her as they drove up and lane and asking, “Why’re you leaving me here?” It nearly broke her heart.

1913 plat from Soldier Township, Shawnee County, showing County Poor Farm

Although a lot of people have never heard of “poor farms,” they were once common across the nation. Various terms have been used to describe the “house for the poor,” and often the titles were unique to the part of the country where the house was located. For example, in New England, they were called “almshouses,” in Maryland “county home,” in Indiana “county asylum,” and throughout most of the middle Midwest they were known as “poor farms” or “county farms.” Owned and operated by local government, they provided a place of refuge for those who otherwise would be homeless. The residents were referred to as inmates--a word with a completely different connotation today!

In addition to state- or county-run homes, private institutions sometimes operated asylums for the elderly, poor, or orphaned. In Kansas, more than a dozen existed, including the Hygiene Home for Friendless Persons (opened in 1890 in Hillsboro), which was financially supported and run by the Mennonite Brethren Church. Many poor farms closed their doors during the years of World War II. The last poor farm in Kansas, the Ingleside Home in Topeka, operated until 1974, closing permanently on March 1 of that year.

Limestone barn near Cottonwoods Fall, Kansas

In June of 2011, two other historical writers and I traveled to the Cottonwood Falls area of Kansas for a little get-away. While driving through the countryside, we came upon a huge rock barn and couldn’t resist stopping to investigate. A sign indicated the barn was all that remained of what had once been the county poor farm. Through further exploration at a later time, I learned that the house had been destroyed by a fire in 1945. The information got my writer-thinker going: Who had lived here? What brought them to that place? Where did they go when the house was destroyed? Those questions collided with my previous knowledge of the Mennonite Church sponsoring poor farms in Kansas, and a story seed sprouted into full bloom.

Historical sign--near Cottonwoods Fall, Kansas

On September 17th, What Once Was Lost will find its way to bookstore shelves. Christina Willems was raised by missionary parents who taught her to serve, and she feels very accountable for the residents of the Brambleville Asylum for the Poor where she lives as manager. When a fire breaks out, leaving the house uninhabitable, she faces the difficult task of providing care for those who have come to depend upon her leadership. As Christina’s world crumbles around her, she will learn the true meaning of home and belonging. 

Reading about the poor farms and learning some of the difficulties that brought people to those places of refuge made me very grateful not only for the home I have here on earth, but for the one waiting for me in heaven. That one will never be destroyed by a fire or flood or close its doors for lack of funding! The mansion waiting for me will be mine for eternity--a comforting thought.

If you’d like to learn more about poor farms in Kansas, please visit the Kansas Historical Society website (http://www.kshs.org/p/poor-farms-in-kansas-1855-1974-a-bibliography/13587)

May God bless you muchly as you journey with Him! ~Kim Vogel Sawyer

Highly acclaimed for her gentle stories of hope, Kim Vogel Sawyer is a bestselling author of thirty titles with more than a million copies of her books in print. A Kansas girl at heart, Kim enjoys writing stories set on the plains of her home state. She and her retired military husband operate a bed-and-breakfast inn with the help of their four feline companions and relish time with their three adults daughters and ten grandchildren. Learn more about Kim at: www.KimVogelSawyer.com.

BEDLAM: THE HUMAN ZOO by J.Kent



Question: Why study the history of the oldest lunatic asylum in history?

Answer: In hopes of never repeating the horrors of the past.

Bethlem Hospital at St George's Fields, 1828

My every day world is spent counseling college students. Nursing students to be exact. But prior to this wonderful position I’ve held for the past nineteen years I also worked in in-patient psychiatric units for adults and adolescents and in out-patient mental health settings. I’ve seen the anguish that mental illness brings to families of an affected love one and the agony that patients suffer because they are sometimes at the mercy of medications that may help, but also bring with them some pretty awful side-effects that can include weight gain, insomnia, dizziness, lethargy, nausea, and a host of other frustrations. Patients and clients just want to feel better and have normal healthy lives, but sometimes that just doesn’t happen and suicide results as a way of seeking relief from unbearable emotional and mental pain.



Melancholia and Mania



Engraving by C. Warren first appearing in Hughson's London of two figures carved by Gabriel Caius Cibber c. 1676. The figures represented, melancholy (on the left) and raving madness or mania (on the right). They adorned the entrance portal to the new Bethlem Royal Hospital (Bedlam) which opened at a site in Moorfields, north London in 1676. (From Wikipedia-in the public domain).

The history of mental illness and perspectives on mental health throughout the world are diverse, fascinating, and often horrific. Mental illness today continues to know no boundaries. It doesn’t care if you’re poverty stricken or wealthy, unemployed or working your dream job. There is no color barrier. Mental illness strikes children, teens, and adults. Young college students sometimes go away to school where they suffer depressions, psychotic breaks, and first bouts of schizophrenia. Almost everyone has been touched by some form of mental illness even if it’s only from seeing what happens in society at it’s worst. You’ve all seen the devastation.

Originally during the reign of Henry III, the hospital that became infamous as Bedlam got it's beginnings as St. Mary Bethlehem Hospital located in Bishop’s Gate in1247 and was not a lunatic asylum at all, but primarily utilized for the collection of alms.(Also referred to as the Priory of the New Order of St Mary of Bethlem in the city of London.) Later, when patients were admitted as insane, the term Bedlam, is the name that was created out of the chaos of Bethlem Hospital. 

In 1676 Bethlem was rebuilt at Moorsfield.

 In the time period of the regency (this is the time period that my Ravensmoore Chronicles take place) and for many years before, the wealthy and aristocratic frequented Bedlam as a place of entertainment and thought it amusing to visit those who suffered from mental illness. If you want to watch a very powerful but disturbing video on the history of Bedlam you can do so here. 

Bethlem Royal Hospital is located today in Beckenham, Kent.

What's the last book your read or movie or television show you watched that included issues about mental mental health, past or present?

You will be included in a drawing for Mystery of the Heart when you leave a comment. Don't forget there are other giveaways this month as well.

Jillian Kent explores the darker side of Regency England. Her latest novel, Mystery of the Heart released in January 2013. Her first novel, Secrets of the Heart will introduce you to asylum life, and Chameleon will take you into historic Bedlam itself. But never fear, romance is alive and well in all of Jillian's novels.

www.jilliankent.com

@JillKentAuthor on Twitter

Jillian also writes and coordinates, The Well Writer, for the Christian Fiction Online Magazine.