Mental Hospital

In the morning, on my way to the train's parking lot, i have noticed this building. I vowed that when i actually had a few minutes, i would drive down and take a peek. As you can see in the above picture, i had time to take a peek. I drove down the road, and continued on where most people turned down the other road. A sign stated, Anoka Metro Regional Treatment Center (more or less). I thought, "oh a drug rehab place". I continued on down the road and i got the distinct impression that i shouldn't be on the road unless i had business to. Must have been the no thru traffic sign... Anyways, i briefly stopped and took this picture and made a u-turn and left.

My mom had mentioned that my great aunt worked at a state hospital in Anoka. She was the director of nursing, which back in her time (1940's) it was unusual for a single woman to support herself. The government paid for her schooling, and in turn she had to serve 2? years as director of nursing at the Anoka State Hospital. What i thought was a drug rehab place is actually a mental hospital (which "mental" probably isn't PC to say).

I mentioned to my mom that i had driven down this road and taken a picture of one of the buildings. She said, "oh yes, that's the hospital that your great aunt worked at". My mom said her and my grandmother would go and visit my great aunt at work. My mom said she really didn't know at the time that it was a mental hospital. She only has a few snippets of memories. Apparently the patients got a kick out of seeing my mom, who at that time was a young child. My mom remembers what she wore one day to the hospital but that's about it. I'll have to ask her more at another time.

My mom and i continued to discuss this though and at my ripe old age of 32, i have realized what my great aunt must have witnessed as a director of nursing in a state run mental hospital. Below is an early picture of what the hospital looks like. I imagine it still looks the same, trees, river, roads, and buildings.

Aerial view of Anoka State Hospital, Anoka. Photographer: Leo A. (Dinty) Moore Photograph Collection 1937

I was going to meet my mom in the next few days, after our conversation about the hospital, to go through a buffet of my grandmother's. I made a note to ask them both a bit more about the hospital when we met. Unfortunately, we had to focus on the cleaning and i didn't' get a chance to ask much more. What i did find though, made me think even more about the line of work my great aunt faced.

Part of cleaning the buffet out meant we had to clear space in the storage closet. Not only did we need the space in the closet, we needed to clear two bins of paperwork that my grandmother has kept from the 1990's. It's all paperwork from my great grandparents' funerals, great aunt's funeral, and my grandfather's funeral. My grandmother was excellent at keeping records, unfortunately it's all funeral paperwork.

Besides paperwork and Christmas decorations, there lies 4 great mysteries to me. Two of which were slightly revealed to me. In one funeral pouch we found all of the birth/marriage/death certificates of the family. In another funeral pouch we found my great aunts personal affects. I only saw my mom pull out a pair of glasses and a box with a handwritten note stating, "Daily Devotions".

Now i thought daily devotions was a religious thing, apparently it's not. My mom said my great aunt wrote those when she was about my age. This got me to thinking about how my great aunt must have endured a terrible job. My mom said my great aunt NEVER spoke about work. Not at all. When i see stories about what mental hospitals were like back in the day... that was my great aunt. She must have had to make some terrible decisions, at that time thinking they were the right decisions.

I decided to do a little more research about the hospital just to see if i could confirm what i thought she must have witnessed. To learn more about the hospital you can go here. To learn about the scarier part of the hospital, you can go here. The little blurb is all the more detail i could find. I'm not sure what years those things happened in the second link, but it still could not have been pleasant for my great aunt.