It’s funny how we can view our ancestors on a family tree. Their names appear in little boxes with a couple of calendar dates that show when they lived. Neat and tidy. With nary a clue as to the drama, or the joy, or achievements, or the pain or suffering of the lives that were actually lived. Or endured.

This is a photo of my grandmother, Johanna. That was what my Norwegian mother told me her name was, but I learned later that she was often called “Hannah”. My mother may not have known that, because she was only 2 years old the last time she saw her.

When my mom named my older sister “Joan”, I think she may have thought that was an American version of the name Johanna. Forever after, my sister’s name was always pronounced as Jo-ann. I’ve always believed it was because that’s the way my mother thought her mother’s name was pronounced in America.

Apart from that reference, neither my mother nor my grandfather Knute ever spoke of Johanna. I finally learned why a few years ago. They were keeping a kind of family secret.

Take a tip from me: if you’ve never peered much into your ancestral family tree, use caution, or, like me, you might find yourself hurtling down a rabbit hole you might have otherwise avoided.

To understand the household that Johanna was born into, I depended on the impeccable efforts of my distant cousin Julie Davis who is an accomplished genealogist, the research of my great-nephews Corey and Michael, my niece Leanne, and especially, the painstaking efforts of my niece Christine.

Johanna’s parents – my great-grandparents – were Sarah Olson and Jacob L. Johnson.

Johanna’s mother, Sarah was born in Norway in 1839. Nothing’s known yet about her parents or siblings. I don’t have a photo of her, so we’ll use the image MyHeritage.com uses for women who don’t have a photo available – and then use our imagination.

After her immigration to the United States, Sarah had three marriages: the first was when she was 19 years old to Thomas “Louis” Larson, age 20, in Illinois. They had 3 children, but Louis died the year their 3rd child was born.

Sarah – now a widow – with a 6 year-old boy, a 5 year-old boy, and a new baby girl probably had no means of support, at least, until a 32 year old man named Thompson married her. She gave birth to his daughter the same year, but he died two years later, leaving Sarah a widow once again, only now with four very young children to support, a precarious position for a female to be in in the 1860s.

That’s when we meet my great-grandfather Jacob Johnson. Sarah, age 30, and Jacob, age 23 were married in Iowa, and then proceeded to have 7 children – 6 girls and one boy.

My grandmother Johanna, and her twin sister Juliane, were the 3rd and 4th to be born. Sarah, by then, was the mother of 11 children. It was after the birth of the 10th child in 1877, though, that her story becomes more bleak.

It’s likely that the household Johanna and her siblings were living in wasn’t a peaceful or happy one. It was probably chaotic, Several desperate events happened to the family in quick succession.

The first was the death of Johanna’s twin sister Juliane at age 3.

The same year, 7 months after giving birth to her newest baby named Elizabeth, Sarah was committed as an “inmate” to the Iowa Hospital for the Insane, an institution described in Wikipedia as “a dark and gruesome place”. Admission to mental hospitals in those days would commonly be considered illegal today. A declaration of mental aberration by a husband, family member, police or any complaining citizen could cause a victim to be involuntarily admitted for lengthy or permanent confinement.

I don’t know the date Sarah was released from the asylum, but the following year, at age 40, she delivered her 11th child, John Jacob Johnson. At somewhat the same time, her husband Jacob Johnson “left” the family. Census records two years later in 1880 show him living in Illinois. The farm the family lived on – and the children – were left to Sarah.

Once her husband Jacob had deserted the family, Sarah would have been in serious difficulty, to put it mildly. Some of the 11 children may have been sent to live with other family or neighbors. The four oldest were between 12 and 18 years old and may already have been hired out to live and work as farm-hands or household help. Johanna’s twin had died, but 7 children still must have been in need of support. Their ages were newborn to 10 years old.

Eleven months after the new baby John Jacob was born, and having been “left” by Jacob, Sarah was committed for the second time to the asylum. Mental health care as we know it today didn’t exist. The History of Medicine in Iowa carefully describes it this way:

“The early history of insane hospitals and the treatment accorded their inmates was tragic indeed, but fortunately for us, this period had passed before our institutions were organized, but we were not free from the tradition that insane hospitals were for the care of the insane and only incidentally for treatment.”

Mental illness was referred to as “insanity” and it was generally considered to be incurable. And hereditary. The purpose of confining the inmates to the asylums was to house them, not to treat their mental condition. Once confined, they didn’t usually have visitors. A post card or letter describing the inmates’s condition was mailed to the next of kin once monthly. For Sarah’s first stay, the messages were supposed to be sent to her husband Jacob Johnson. For her second stay, Jacob having “left” her, it was sent to an unidentified person named A.F. Craig who may have been a neighbor or relative who transported her there.

My niece Chris obtained Sarah’s Return of Physician forms for both of Sarah’s stays. They authorized her confinement and were signed by a person named C.C. Griffin, MD, who testified that “I have this day seen Mrs. Sarah Johnson the person named in said Commission as insane and have made a personal examination in her case, as required. As a result of such examination, I hereby certify that according to my judgment, said person is insane, and a fit subject for custody and treatment in the Hospital for the Insane.”

In his examination for each stay, C.C. Griffin describes the symptoms of Sarah’s “insanity”. During all of her pregnancies, Sarah is perfectly normal. Between them though, “…she is careless and negligent about the house, allows her children to go without food, is jealous of her husband, wanders about at night with no purpose…” But Griffin also makes a sinister suggestion on the form. He doesn’t indicate the source of his information but writes : “Her first husband is supposed to have committed suicide. By some, it is thought that she killed him and the present mental condition is due to it.” Apparently gossip was an acceptable source for judging Sarah’s sanity and infringing on what should have been her legal rights. Even her dignity was taken from her. The following announcement appeared in the town newspaper:

This time, Sarah is kept at the institution for 2 years. When discharged in 1882, she was sent to live at the Poor Farm, also called the County Home for Incurables in Iowa where paupers and insane people were sent to live. In 1886, Sarah’s farm was sold for $700 and the money was put in trust for her living children. In 1896, Sarah died at the Poor Farm at the age of 59.

When Sarah was sent back for her second stay in the asylum, something hopeful finally happened to five year-old Johanna: a couple named Govert and Martha Dyrland took her into their own large family and raised her on their farm in Norway, Iowa. I never met the Dyrlands, but when my mother Josie was 16 and came to the U.S., I believe she lived with them. And I remember both my mom and my grandpa both always spoke of them with great respect. They must have been very kind people.

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The following year, 1883, my grandfather Jacob married his second wife, Sisela Swenson, in Illinois. That year Sisela give birth to the first of their 9 children. Counting the 7 children he left in Iowa, Jacob fathered 16 children: 8 girls and 8 boys.

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Now it’s 1894. The same year Jacob welcomes his 7th child into his new family in Illinois, his daughter in Iowa – Johanna – gets married.

This is a photo taken on the wedding day of Johanna and my grandpa Knute Longfield in Norway, Iowa. Johanna was 18, Knute was 24.

The following year, 1894, Johanna gave birth to my uncle Nelles in Graettinger, Iowa. Two years later, in 1896, my mother Josie was born in Norway, Iowa. One year after that, Johanna delivered a baby named Mable.

In 1898, the horror of her mother’s story was re-played on Johanna. Still nursing the baby Mable, she began showing signs of what seems like what we might think of today as “post-partum depression”. Because the “insanity” of her mother was considered hereditary, I believe Johanna didn’t really have a chance in hell of avoiding the fate that awaited her.

On December 17, 1898, after wandering to her sister’s house at night, her sister and her uncle took her to the same Iowa Hospital for the Insane where she was taken into custody as an inmate – exactly the same scenario as Sarah’s. The admitting doctor was even the same – C. C. Griffin, MD.

This time, the Return of Physician form in the medical chart contained a little more information. It stated that Johanna was 24 years old with brown eyes and brown hair, height of 5’3”, and weight of 123 lbs.

On admission, Dr. Griffin described her insanity thusly. “First symptoms manifested after birth of last child. Lost all interest in her household duties, care of children. In constant fear of impending danger. …Wanders up and down the road when permitted. Has no inclination to care for her children or household duties. All interest in home has disappeared. Conversation incoherent, profane…Physical condition fairly good. Bowels regular. Sleeps little at night. Has not menstruated since birth of child…breasts are quite large and full of milk.”

In 1900, two years after her confinement, Johanna became ill with typhoid fever. The Ward Notes recorded by an attendant describes her condition on August 10: “She was kept as quietly as possible and given sponge baths, but this did not seem to have much influence over the temperature: this morning at 8 o’clock, the temperature was 104.6. She has had bags of ice about her head and chest for the past two or three days… A number of rose spots were first observed over the abdomen and chest on Aug. 7th. There was considerable tymponitis the last two days and extreme tenderness of the abdomen. She was given several enemas although her bowels were not much constipated. . . She was conscious and in her usual mental condition most of the time. Occasionally was a little delirious . . . and repeatedly screamed, although she would not say that she was in pain, but said that she felt peculiar.”

Johanna died at 10:25 that morning. She was 25 years old.

There may have been no way Jacob learned of her death. Jacob seemed to be prospering in Illinois. He’s pictured below with the two daughters he fathered there.

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There don’t seem to be any photos of Jacob with the six daughters he abandoned in Iowa, but here’s a photo of four of them. My grandmother – Johanna is on the right.

.By age 70, my grandfather Jacob was living in South Dakota where he married for the third time, to Elizabeth Krohling. He died at the age of 87 and because he was a Civil War veteran, he was buried with full military honors. Personally, I appreciate his service in the Union army, but had I been around at the time of the funeral, I may not have been in a big rush to get there in time to honor him.

Like other women in the 1800s, my grandmothers were second-class citizens. They weren’t encouraged to get a real education, they didn’t have the right to own property, keep their own wages if they had any, or sign a contract. And they were denied the right to vote. What they were expected to do was to perform their household duties, produce one newborn baby after another, and then care for them, milk the cows, tote the water, do the wash, make the bread. It seems that complaints by dissatisfied husbands as to neglect of those duties could result in catastrophic punishment and assumption of lunacy. That could have helped seal the fate of my grandmothers.

Most of the insane asylums of the 1800s have been abandoned. The horrific treatment of other human beings makes it uncomfortable to consider the thought of staying there and such treatment simply didn’t last once mental illness became better understood. The hell-hole my grandmothers were housed in is an exception. Built in 1873, the building is still in use. Renamed the Mental Health Institute of Iowa, it is now successfully operated, and serves the state of Iowa with modern and humane treatment of its patients.

According to travelIowa.com: “Most of the building is still used but one of the old wings was turned into a “Days of Yore” museum that features a disturbing look back through time at how society treated people suffering from mental illness. You can tour the older wings and the hospital’s graveyard by appointment. Visitors have reported hearing whispers, feeling cold drafts, having the feeling that they are being watched and even hearing disembodied screams.”

And according to mysteriousheartland.com, “Apparitions of former staff and patients are also seen in the buildings and on the grounds around the hospital”. The site also ranks the institution as the sixth most haunted insane asylum in the Midwest.”

We haven’t been able to find out where Johanna was buried, but if you watch this video of the building she died in, you’ll see a small graveyard on the grounds. Maybe that’s where her grave is .If you ever schedule a tour of the Days of Yore museum, Please look for her name – Johanna Johnson Longfield – but they may have called her Hannah. She was my grandma, and her story doesn’t have to be a secret anymore.

https://youtu.be/m7S1b5Xhv3k

(A final note: If you’ve patiently read through this story about my grandmothers, I hope you’ll keep in mind that any family’s genealogy has to involve ancient history: the primitive hand-written record-keeping of olden days (often difficult to decipher because of the flowery script in use); missing documents; and dependence on the memory, impressions, or accuracy of earlier generations contributing to it. No matter how much conscientious diligence and fact-checking is applied today, the info can be riddled with errors. There may be some in my grandmothers’ history but I hope they’re minor ones. And if they aren’t, the fault is mine.)