Lunacy

Twenty years separate their deaths, but they rest side by side forever. Caroline C. C. Caldwell (d. 1882) is buried next to her infant daughter, Isabella Caldwell (yesterday’s post) in Spring Grove Cemetery.

IN MEMORY OF
CAROLINE C. C. CALDWELL
WIFE OF
ANTHONY CALDWELL
DIED JUNE 29, 1882
IN HER 56 YEAR.
The cemetery burial records show that Caroline was a resident of Cincinnati’s Longview Asylum when she died. The disease that caused her death? Lunacy.

The Federal Census records for Cincinnati in 1870 and 1880 show Anthony and Caroline Caldwell living in the same household. In 1880—two years before Caroline’s death—there is an entry next to Anthony’s name in column 15. You know that column:

Is the person [on the day of the Enumerator’s visit] sick or temporarily disabled, so as to be unable to attend to ordinary business or duties? If so, what is the sickness or disability?

What do you think? I think the entry is meant to read “Nervous Disease of Head,” and it was intended for the line below: Caroline.

Without commenting on Caroline Caldwell’s specific condition, which is unknown to me, I share these sentences from the abstract of “Lunacy in the 19th Century: Women’s Admission to Asylums in United States of America,” by Katherine Pouba and Ashely Tianen (2006):

Between the years of 1850-1900, women were placed in mental institutions for behaving in ways that male society did not agree with. Women during this time period had minimal rights, even concerning their own mental health. Research concluded that many women were admitted for reasons that could be questionable. Since the 19th century, many of the symptoms women experience according to admittance records would not make a woman eligible for admittance to a mental asylum today. Women with symptoms were later diagnosed insane by reasons such as religious excitement, epilepsy, and suppressed menustruation.

May you rest in peace, Caroline.

Longview Asylum

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Spring Grove Cemetery, Hamilton County, Ohio