Gone but not forgotten: History students research deaths at Central State Hospital

By Cindy O'Donnell

J ust in time for Halloween and two religious observances, 'All Soul's Day' and the Hispanic 'Day of the Dead' - a time of year when the departed are remembered - two Georgia College & State University history students completed research on more than 3,700 patients who died at Central State Hospital.

Junior history majors Alex Gray and Evelyn Evans of Monroe, Georgia, signed up for the internships at Georgia's Old Capital Heritage Center in Milledgeville to fulfill GC Journeys requirements.

But they walked away with a new understanding and appreciation for mental illness.

"I used to find American history extremely boring," Gray said. "I'd never heard of medical history. I wanted to get out of my comfort zone and step out of ancient history, like Mesopotamia, and experience something new."

"It certainly changed a lot of what I think about mental institutions, breaking down the preconceived notions I had from movies that show a bunch of crazy people all being crazy in one place," he said. "These were sick people with problems that were not very well understood at the time. It broadened my horizons."

The Heritage Center museum, located at the Depot on hospital property, opened a one-room exhibit in May. "Fast Fading, A History of Central State Hospital" displays maps, historical pictures, lobotomy tools, nursing uniforms, a straitjacket and surgical bed.

Juniors Alex Gray and Evelen Evans at Cedar Lane Cemetery, Milledgeville. (Video & photos by Peyton Miller) For the past several months, Gray and Evans worked with museum director Jessica Whitehead to add a new display, "Death at the Asylum," which records and honors the many people who died onsite.

Central State Hospital opened in 1842 and became what's considered the largest mental asylum in the world. Nearly 200 buildings were added over the years to accommodate a seemingly unending stream of patients. At its peak, the hospital was home to more than 13,000 people suffering from mental health issues.

"As more people came into the hospital," Evans said, "they needed more room. One of the problems they always had was overcrowding. That's something we see in our research. Every single annual report stated they needed more room. Yet, they continued taking in patients, because there weren't a lot of places for them to go."

Whitehead estimates there are 35,000 graves at five cemeteries scattered around Central State Hospital. The first 2,000 bodies were buried at Memory Hill Cemetery in Milledgeville. Gray and Evans toured Cedar Lane Cemetery recently, where as many as 8,500 patients are buried in segregated areas. A bronze 'guardian angel' statue guards the site.

Largely unwanted and abandoned in life, many patients were also unclaimed in death.

Their families either lacked money for funerals or didn't care. Prior to modern transportation and embalming techniques, it was also dangerous to move decomposing bodies.

Gray and Evans reviewed and charted hundreds of years of Central State Hospital annual reports, kept in the Digital Library of Georgia. They were tasked with researching cause of death, defining time periods and how records changed over the years.

Reports became more detailed as the years wore on, making research easier. Names weren't noted on documents, but reports indicate male and female, white and Black.

Patients died from things like anemia, apoplexy (bleeding in the brain), dropsy (water retention), gastrointestinal illnesses, epilepsy and "maniacal exhaustion." Too many died of tuberculosis - 50 one year. Another year in the early 1900s, tuberculosis accounted for nearly 23% of 500 deaths.

"What surprised me about the results is just the number of things people died from, and the number of people that died in those years," Gray said. "It's also surprising to me how many things we've fixed and don't die from anymore."

After graduation, both students want to work in museums or historical archives. The internship taught them strong research skills.

It was also a way remember and honor those who died at Central State Hospital.

"There were people who lived and died here, and that's super important because asylums have a legacy of being scary places," Evans said. "People lived here. They went about their normal business here, and they died here. It's important to remember that. This is not just some spooky, scary place, It's a real place, and it was home for some people."

"Getting to do research on this was very intriguing," she added. "It helped me understand these were not insane people. They had mental health problems that were not understood at the time. It's really sad to examine, but it's also super interesting. It shows how far we've come as a society when it comes to mental health, and also how far we have left to go."

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