I would like to add a little to what Lorene Lambert said. There were also alcoholics in Central State Hospital who needed help sobering up, for lack of another term. Most of these men were not mentally challenged, just had a drinking problem. In this day and age, they would never be sent to a place like that, but to a rehab center. It was a hell-hole indeed. Good luck on finding his remains, Willie. > > > From: "Lorene Lambert" <Lorene.Lambert@tn.gov> > > I wish to respond to the comment that bureaucrats hide behind HIPPA. With regard to Central State, few record exist, and it is unfortunate that in the early 1900s, people did not keep good records. Persons who were sent to the mental hospitals were often "discarded" by their families. It is possible that patients were buried on hospital grounds as their relatives would not take their bodies back. Ignorance about mental illnesses and stigma was and still is a big problem. We do not hide behind HIPPA, and as a genealogist working in the system, it breaks my heart that we often have no record or cannot even find the grave of a patient. The black cemetery for Central State is now on airport property and hard to access. The white cemetery is on Dell property. There are people working to honor those buried and to list as many names as possible. Census records are sometimes the only alternative to finding someone, and a death record will at least tell when someone died and of wha! t ! > cause. I sent the individual wanting information the links on Tennessee's genweb pages that give the best info and links to finding patients. It is at http://www.tngenweb.org/poor/ and is a starting point. If you want to change the system on HIPPA for old records, write to your congressmen and women and make it a campaign to use reasonable access to records for relatives who are building family histories. > Lorene Lambert > Communications Office > Tennessee Department of Mental Health & Developmental Disabilities > > > ------------------------------ > > > From: Wolfman Jack <tennessee_wolfman1978@yahoo.com> > Subject: Re: [TNDAVIDS] TNDAVIDS Digest, Vol 5, Issue 56 > > My great-grandfather, James Lawson Steele, died at Central State July 23, 1919, and apparently buried there on the grounds. There were two cemeteries. One for whites. One for Blacks. James was born in DeKalb County, TN July 1879 so was right at age 40. He was epileptic, and they just locked him up in that hell-hole. > > I'd love to find his remains and have them sent back to DeKalb county, where my great-grandmother, Oma Green (Smith) Steele (1880 - 1933) is buried. > > Willie Smith > > > >