Author Archives: Ellen

We’re a Top 50 Hospital Blog!

This is old news, but the Morningside Hospital Blog was rated among the 50 best hospital blogs by healthcare blog, “Nurseblogger.”  This happened last September but I wasn’t aware of it until I stumbled on it while doing Morningside research.  I think we’re probably the only blog about a hospital that no longer exists among […]

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More Nome Court Records

Gold was discovered in Nome in 1898. The city was incorporated in 1901 and grew to an estimated 20,000 over the next 10 years, making it the most populous city in the Alaska Territory.  Only a few of the thousands of miners who came to Nome to seek their fortunes succeeded. Today Nome has fewer […]

Posted in 1900-1929, Court Records | Leave a comment

1915 Investigation

Many of the recently discovered burial sites and death certificates were from the early years at Morningside Hospital. In May, I wrote an article  about the Department of the Interior’s 1915 investigation into the care provided at the hospital. In March of 1915, the judicial committee of the Alaska Territorial Legislature issued a report criticizing […]

Posted in 1900-1929, Investigations & Inspections, Quality of Care | Leave a comment

Patient Death Certificates

by Sally Mead Over the past two weeks in Portland we’ve unearthed quite a bit more backdrop on the search for the burial locations of Morningisde patients. Working closely with Robin Renfroe and her sister Peggy, from Salem, we visited the State of Oregon Archives to search for death certificates for over 150 people. Robin […]

Posted in 1900-1929, 1930-1949, 1950-1960s, Patient Burials | Leave a comment

Patient Burial Sites Located

A lot of good things happened over the past few weeks. I’ll post an article with more information later this weekend but wanted to get just a bit of the exciting news online now. Good friends and volunteers Robin Renfroe (Fairbanks) and Sally Mead (Anchorage) were in Portland this week looking for Morningside patient death […]

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Nome Court Records

We’ve dragged two new volunteers into our pursuit of the history of Morningside Hospital. Niesje Steinkruger and Meg Green, retired Superior Court Judges from the Alaska Fourth Judicial District, are taking the lead in researching the Federal and State court commitment records. Meg recently returned from a trip to Nome, where she spent a few […]

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Christmas at Morningside Hospital

Among the few pictures of Morningside are a two taken at Christmas celebrations in the 1920s. The US Department of the Interior records included correspondence from Wayne Coe about the 1922 Morningside Hospital Christmas party and an accounting of the party and patient gift expenses. These two photos, which are from the Oregon Historical Society, […]

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More Patient Burial Clues

A while ago, Robin Renfroe sent us James Ebana’s story, which was posted in May on this blog.  James had epilepsy and was sent to Morningside Hospital when he was 17 years old. He died there on March 21, 1942 when he was 27. She thought he was buried at the Multnomah Park Pioneer Cemetery, […]

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1912 to 1942 Admissions

Occasionally there are glimpses of who was at Morningside. Included in the Department of the Interior files from the National Archives was a tabulation of admissions between 1912 and 1942. There was a total of 1,601 admissions over the 30 years, an average of 53 admissions per year. The percentage of admissions who were female […]

Posted in 1900-1929, 1930-1949, Treatment/Outcomes | Leave a comment

Patient Stories: Pennies From Heaven

By Karen Perdue The family lore about my uncle said he was taken from a small village on the Yukon River in his childhood because he was acting funny. Actually, my aunt Minnie told me he was hit over the head with a frying pan and was never the same again.  Where did he go, […]

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