Information about individual patients at the Faribault State School and Hospital is few and far between. However, we do have a few stories.
M.D.
M.D., whose case history was told in an 1892 paper called “Report of Five Cases of Mental and Moral Aberration Among the Feeble-Minded at the Minnesota School for Feeble-Minded,” was born prematurely and admitted to Faribault at the age of 15. She had frequent temper tantrums involving the destruction of furniture and would frequently misbehave in other ways. She was less intellectually disabled than many of her classmates at Faribault, but had a short attention span. Her sexual proclivities were shocking for the period, including frequent masturbation and exhibitionism. She frequently faced severe punishment, as that was the only thing that attendants believed would get her to behave, and was placed in the custodial unit, although she was much less disabled than many others on that unit. Eventually, three years later, she, or a patient with an almost identical case history to her, was sterilized via removal of the ovaries, as “her excitement was concurrent with her menstrual periods and there was excessive tenderness over the ovaries.” (pg. 599-600). This had little effect on her behavior, and she was committed to an asylum for the insane.
C.
C entered the school at 18 after trying to kill her newborn baby sister. She could only read a handful of words, stole other patients’ clothing, would have temper tantrums where she would kick the panels out of doors and throw chairs, and frequently swallowed non-food items, including sharp objects. She also exhibited schizophrenia-like symptoms, including talking to people that weren’t there, having a preoccupation with the devil, and becoming obsessed with planning an imaginary wedding with no groom. This culminated in the persistent delusion that she had somehow swallowed a “box” that prevented her from eating. Eventually, she stopped eating solid food altogether and died. Like M.D., she was categorized as a “moral imbecile”—someone who was totally ignorant of the difference between right and wrong and unable to change their behavior.
From “Comments on Training Issues”
One day one of the boys in the School for the Feeble-Minded at Faribault pulled me by the coat and said he wanted to show me something. I followed him up stairs and in the corner of the room was a box from which he took a package which he unrolled and brought out a little nubbin of corn and said triumphantly, “I raised that!’”…In the summer he had asked for a hill of corn for himself and he was told to pick one out. He picked one out on a corner where they used to drive the oxen. One day the oxen browsed the corn and destroyed the whole hill except one little stalk. But this boy had hoed and hoed at it all summer till he gathered this one little ear of corn which he harvested and hid away and he was as proud of it as Caesar ever was of his crown.
A.C. Rogers, 1894, pgs. 477-78
The Relationship Between the School for the Blind and the School for the Feeble-Minded
In Faribault the grounds of the School for Feeble-Minded adjoin the grounds of the School for the Blind. We see both types. Each institution has easy access to the other. When the children from the School for Feeble-Minded go out walking they pass the School for the Blind, and it is interesting to note their reaction. When they see the blind children they say: “What a pity! Those poor children are blind!” not thinking of their own defect. While the children from the School for the Blind say: “Isn’t it terrible, those poor children are mentally weak!” Each group feels sorry for the other. There is something in that, that, applies to life in general. We see the defects in others but not in ourselves.
J.M. Murdoch, 1935, “What Shall We Do With Blind Mentally Retarded Children?”, pg. 28
J.T.
J.T. was one of the original patients admitted to the Faribault School for the Feeble-Minded in 1879 and remained there until his death. He was 13 when first admitted and originally lived in Otter Tail County. He was described as “an excitable idiot” (pg. 5). He had never learned to talk, and would instead bark like a dog. J.T. would frequently hit his head with his hands, and had a mental age of approximately three to four years. However, in his old age, he grew quieter, and helped care for one of the younger physically disabled students. They formed a strong bond, with J.T., under staff supervision, helping the boy dress and go to the bathroom.
Jeannie
Jeannie was brought to the institution as an 11-year-old by her mother. She was in quite poor condition when received by the hospital, described as “a living mass of flesh” (pg. 11). Standing only at 16-18 inches, her skin was very dry, and her tongue was so large she couldn’t get it in her mouth. After being treated with thyroid hormone, she grew rapidly, her tongue decreased in size, and her abilities increased. When her mother came to fetch her, she refused to believe that the girl was “her Jeannie,” left the hospital without the girl, and never came back.
