“LOCKED AWAY” by Sue Neufarth Howard

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.   Willard Asylum for the insane
1910 – 1960, upstate New York.
Committed patients arrive
with a suitcase, holding all
possessions thought needed.

Patients sent there for any reason:
Epileptic seizures, homosexuality,
promiscuous behavior, mothers
grief too long for a lost child.
They were prisoners there,
family abandoned.

Most never left. Average stay,
30 years. Died there. Buried
in graves – no name, marked
only by number. Suitcases
locked in an attic – forgotten.

Decades later, attic re-entered;
Four hundred cases discovered.
Contents of 80 photographed –
window into lives and minds
of those deemed not normal, unwell.

What’s found inside: Ladies’
gold lame belts and sashes,
fancy hats and shoes, perfumes,
silver napkin ring, curling irons,
sewing kit, personal letters,

a man’s army uniform, grooming kit,
bread ration card, toy pistol,
photos of self and family, injection
needles and epileptic drugs.

In others: Prosthetic leg, a newspaper
bought the day before commitment,
a zither, corked bottle of glycerin,
paperweight from 1893 Chicago
World’s Fair. Suitcases’ photos

on public view, an exhibit to show
“The Changing Face of What is Normal,”
mental health now and then,
San Francisco Exploratorium Museum.

-Sue Neufarth Howard

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