Remembering Kate

A Story of Hope

What is unusual about this woman, my mother, that makes me want to share her story with others?

Raised on a farm in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania, Kate never quite fit the typical image of a quiet, proper and demure Pennsylvania Dutch girl. Unlike her two sisters, she was outspoken, assertive and mischievous, qualities not admired in a young woman at that time. She questioned why they had to sweep the sidewalk when the rain would clear it anyway, and why they had to keep the house so clean.

After completing college with a degree in nutrition, having a brief career as a county extension agent, marrying and having five children (I am the middle child), Kate spent 8 years of her life, from the age of 37 to age 45 in a state mental institution. She was diagnosed with severe and incurable manic depression.

Before the hospitalization, our family life was nearly idyllic. Ma had left behind her career to spend full time engaging her family in a variety of activities from gardening and raising chickens to sewing and cooking. She supported and encouraged activity, creativity and individuality. I will never forget the homemade french fries and fried dough that warmed us on cold winter days. Even though her hospitalization began when I was eight years old, she left with me a rich array of skills I have used all my life and a love for the natural world which has sustained me through many hard times.

Sometimes when we went to visit, she was in a very severe depression, thin and unkempt. She pulled her hair back severely and always wore the same clothes. She hardly knew we were there. She would repeat over and over words we didn't understand while she walked in circles, wringing her hands and crying. At other times she was very exuberant, laughing and talking loudly, behaving in a manner that was bizarre and embarrassing.

Her doctors told us to forget about her, that she was incurably insane and would never get well. We (her five children) went to visit her every Saturday, even after the doctors told us not to come anymore. When she had her first episode of deep depression, she had no support. I am not sure anyone knew how to give her the kind of support she desperately needed. Close family members lived far away. My father was away for weeks at a time working on the railroad. We lived in a rural setting and the task of caring alone for five small children may have overwhelmed her. She had no opportunity to get together with other women.

I often wonder how she might have responded when that first depression set in, if, instead of being taken off to the hospital and isolated from the people who loved her and the world she knew, she had been surrounded with loving caring friends and family members. They could have taken over her responsibilities for a while, perhaps someone could have even taken her on a vacation. Suppose they had just sat with her, listened to her, and held her while she cried. Instead she was separated from the few people she did have in her life. In the hospital, no efforts were made to encourage patients to support each other. And there was little staff available to give support to the multitudes of patients.

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