Oregon mental hospital to honor its 'forgotten souls'

They were dubbed the "forgotten souls" - the cremated remains of thousands of people who came through the doors of Oregon's state mental hospital and died there. Their ashes were abandoned inside 3,500 copper urns.

Discovered a decade ago at the decrepit Oregon State Hospital, where One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was filmed, the remains became a symbol of the state's - and the nation's - dark history of treating the mentally ill.

A research effort to unearth the stories of those who moved through the hospital's halls, and to reunite the remains with surviving relatives, takes center stage on Monday as officials dedicate a memorial to the once-forgotten patients.

"No one wants to be laid to rest without some kind of acknowledgment that they were here, that they contributed, that they lived," said state Senate President Peter Courtney, who led a successful effort to replace the hospital and build the memorial.

Between 1913 and 1971, more than 5,300 people were cremated at the hospital.

Most were patients at the mental institution, but some died at local hospitals, the state tuberculosis hospital, a state penitentiary or the Fairview Training Center, where people with developmental disabilities were institutionalized.

Hospital officials have been working for years to reunite the remains of their former patients with surviving relatives. Since the urns were found by lawmakers on a tour of the hospital in 2005, 183 have been claimed.

The 3,409 that remain and have been identified are listed in a searchable online database. Thirty-eight urns will likely never be identified; they're unmarked, have duplicate numbers or aren't listed in the ledgers of people cremated at the hospital.

They came from different backgrounds, for different reasons.

Some stayed just days before they died, others for nearly their entire lives. They came from every state except Alaska and Hawaii. Nearly 1,000 were born in 44 countries, including 131 from Sweden, 129 from Germany and 116 from Finland. Five were born at sea.

Twenty-two were Native Americans. Their remains won't be part of the memorial; they'll be returned to their tribes for a proper ceremony. Members of the local Sikh community are working to claim the remains of two people.

Many of the 110 military veterans still there will eventually receive proper military burials, though some are ineligible due to dishonorable discharges or insufficient information available.

Some patients spent a lifetime at the hospital for conditions like depression and bipolar disorder that, in modern times, are treated on an outpatient basis.

"At the time, they just put them in a safe place and treated them with what they knew to treat them," said Sharon Tucker, who led the two-year research project.

(China Daily 07/09/2014 page10)