This Week's Story
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While Elizabeth Packard discovers abuse to patients, she shines God's hope to them, which puts her into jeopardy.
This Week’s Story relives American history and the Bible through brief inspiring stories presented on mp3 audio recordings and text for reading.
I shall put you into the asylum! part seven
A year before the American Civil War exploded, Elizabeth Packard was put into the Jacksonville Insane Asylum in 1860. Was she insane? No! Could she think clearly and communicate well? For sure! She was dynamite as a speaker! Persuasive!
That did not mean everyone listening to her agreed with her. Certainly, her husband Theophilus did not. He preferred that she keep quiet. Be humble. Keep her place.
After several years of marriage and the birth of six children, she believed that she had a right, privately and sometimes publicly, to express questions and ideas. She began to write essays for a Bible class she attended.
The law of Illinois State gave Elizabeth’s husband the right to send his wife to the asylum against her will. He planned carefully for her commitment. The only check on him was that the Medical Superintendent of the asylum, Dr. McFarland, had to be satisfied that Elizabeth was insane.
Without meeting Elizabeth, McFarland read an application from her husband for her commitment. She was committed. To her great delight, in the next two months Dr. McFarland listened intently to her. Almost, he seemed her protector, giving her many special privileges.
In following days when Elizabeth walked on the asylum grounds, patients from a ward below hers, called to her from their windows. “Dr. McFarland and the attendants are abusing us. Please help us!”
Elizabeth urged them, “Take your complaints to Dr. McFarland. He is your friend.”
“No, he is not! Many of us have been sent to the lower wards by him.”
The next day Elizabeth was told, “Do not talk with the patients in the lower ward.’
Elizabeth continued to adjust to Seventh Ward. Her friends there appeared sane. Maybe Dr. McFarland had helped them with his kindness. However, the rules given them were frustrating to keep. They were told when to get up, when to sleep, when to bathe, when to change their underwear, and when their hair must be cut. She was exempted from the rules.
She observed the staff’s unkindness to the patients. This was in Ward Seven, where the best conditions in the asylum for patients were. If a patient cried in the prayer circle Elizabeth had started, then a staff member insisted, “Cease your crying! You cannot go home if you are upset. If you are getting better, you would want to stay here until you are well.”
Many of the women longed to see their children, but Dr. McFarland did not listen to their concerns. The women in the prayer circle whispered their secrets to Elizabeth. Their emotions must be tightly controlled around staff.
Then one day the women watched as a woman of refined manners protested the rules. Her clothes were stripped off and she was placed in a straitjacket. The staff directress guided Elizabeth into a sewing room. She whispered to Elizabeth, “If you expect to get out of here, give up these morning prayers.”
Elizabeth exclaimed, “I could not do so,”
The directress looked piercingly at Elizabeth, “I know more about this asylum than you do, Mrs. Packard.”
Elizabeth continued to find ways to encourage patients and befriend attendants.
This is Barbara Steiner and Nathan Thomas. Listen for the next episode of “I shall put you into the asylum!” Find it on radio or the website:thisweeksstory.com.
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