tag:dreamwidth.org,2011-06-11:913346Shakin' the Family TreeA never ending journey...Dee Burris Blakley2012-06-22T01:42:34Ztag:dreamwidth.org,2011-06-11:913346:98078Those Places Thursday: Lakeland Asylum, Jefferson Co., KY2011-10-19T17:52:52Z2012-06-22T01:42:34Zpublic4<a href="http://s3.photobucket.com/albums/y69/sharpchick/Places/?action=view&current=LakelandAsylum.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y69/sharpchick/Places/LakelandAsylum.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><small>also known as Central Kentucky Asylum for the Insane</small><hr />It hasn't been uncommon for me to find some of my kinfolk committed to asylums of one kind or another.<br /><br />But in the case of one of my many times removed Parrish cousins, I wonder why.<br /><br />Sudie Parrish Vittitow was three months shy of her 74th birthday when she died at <a href="http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~kyjeffer/CentralState/CentralStateHospital.html">Lakeland Asylum</a> on 25 Feb 1936.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://s3.photobucket.com/albums/y69/sharpchick/Family%20photos/Historic%20Documents/?action=view&current=SudieParrishVittitowdeathcert.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y69/sharpchick/Family%20photos/Historic%20Documents/SudieParrishVittitowdeathcert.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><small>Sad, but telling that the place where she had lived for three years thought she was <i>Sadie</i> instead of Sudie.</small></center><br /><br />A simple Google search tells some horror stories about the care and treatment at the place where Sudie lived for 3 years, 3 months and 13 days after her commitment - like how in the 1930s, cold showers, insulin injections, lobotomies and shock therapy were used to "cure" the patients, many of whom were just old and had dementia.<br /><br />Some people say the place is <a href="http://www.louisvilleghs.com/LGHS_MASTER/SUB/Legends/Central_State/central_state.html">haunted.</a><hr />Sudie was the daughter of William Foster Parrish and Elizabeth Holbert. She was born on 15 May 1862 in Nelson County, KY, as were most of her ten siblings. She had a twin sister named Sallie.<br /><br />She married twice, first to Samuel Vittitow, from whom she was divorced, and then to his cousin, Anthony, who died in 1929.<br /><br />Altogether, Sudie had 8 children, including sons Clarence and Charlie, who had lived in their parents' home well into their adult years - and up to and including the 1930 census, when they were living with their newly widowed mother as men in their 30s.<br /><br />So why was Sudie committed to an asylum?<br /><br />I guess I'll have to wait and ask her on the other side...<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=dee_burris&ditemid=98078" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments