Cover, The Montgomery County Story, vol. 68, no. 2, Spring 2025
Just published! Part 1 of the history of the Montgomery County Poor Farm and Almshouse covering its origins through the end of the nineteenth century. Part 2 will be published in a few months.
For nearly 160 years, the Almshouse at the Montgomery County Poor Farm was the last resort for poor people who were unable to take care of themselves due to physical, mental, and developmental disabilities. A look at some of their stories, including how they lived and died, sheds a light on conditions there. Despite the oversight of county officials and the efforts of reformers, the Almshouse was a place where the poor were neglected, abused, and exposed to unsafe conditions until it closed in 1948.
For nearly 160 years, the Almshouse at the Montgomery County Poor Farm was the last resort for poor people who were unable to take care of themselves due to physical, mental, and developmental disabilities. A look at some of their stories, including how they lived and died, sheds a light on conditions there. Despite the oversight of county officials and the efforts of reformers, the Almshouse was a place where the poor were neglected, abused, and exposed to unsafe conditions until it closed in 1948.
On December 17, 2024, I gave a Zoom presentation on the Montgomery County Poor Farm and its Almshouse for Montgomery History. Almshouses were in some ways a precursor to the state hospitals for the mentally ill. Some of my ancestors were inmates of almshouses (also known as poor houses) in Connecticut and Rhode Island. This is a video of my talk.
It’s been a long time since I’ve posted here. I am still selling my book, Secrets of the Asylum, but I can’t travel to promote it for the foreseeable future, for medical reasons. The short version of what happened is: long car trip > deep vein thrombosis (DVT) > pulmonary embolism (PE). Fortunately, I survived, but am still recovering. I’m thankful for excellent medical care and the support of my loving husband, friends, and family.
Because I’m not on the road selling my book, I am relying on online sales. If you have read it already, and liked it, please tell other people about it. Leaving a review and/or a star rating on Amazon would also help sell the book.
If you haven’t read the book, you may be interested to know that the most frequent comment I get about it is, “I couldn’t put it down.” Maybe that will entice you to give it a try.
Finally, here’s some unsolicited medical advice: if you are going to be driving or flying for an extended period, wear compression socks! I wish I had.
On November 15, 2023, I was fortunate to give a talk on Secrets of the Asylum to a large and appreciative audience at Otis Library in Norwich, Connecticut. Here’s a video of the lecture.
I hope you will take the time to read this review of Secrets of the Asylum published in Severance, an online publication which calls itself “a magazine and community for people who’ve been separated from biological family.”
Severance gives a voice to people who were adopted, or donor conceived, or who found out that one or both of their parents aren’t related to them biologically. In this age of genetic genealogy, more and more people are discovering unexpected things in their family trees, upending their sense of identity. Severance allows people to share how these circumstances have affected them. In addition to validating their emotional truths, the essays in the magazine lend support to others in similar situations. Severance also helps identity seekers by pointing them to resources to help them on their journey to discover the truth about their beginnings.
Although the story I tell in Secrets of the Asylum isn’t typical of those told in Severance, it touches on themes that come up whenever DNA surprises are uncovered: intergenerational trauma and the consequences of family secrets.
Retired librarian Julianne Mangin was a reluctant genealogist — at first. But after acquiring her ailing mother’s genealogy files, something drew her into the family history. Maybe it was years of listening to her mother’s cryptic stories of her childhood which featured a delicatessen, a state hospital, a county home for neglected children, and a father who disappeared. Even though Grandpa divorced her mother and never got her out of the county home, Mangin’s mother defended her father’s absence and called him a wonderful father.
At first, all Mangin meant to do was organize her mother’s files so that they could be stored more compactly. But it wasn’t long before she began noticing errors, omissions, and discrepancies in her mother’s research that cast doubt on the family stories. Thus began her transformation from reluctant genealogist to relentless family historian. She acquired her grandmother’s patient record from Norwich State Hospital and the secrets just spilled out. There were four other women in her mother’s family who were patients at state hospitals, three of them at Norwich State Hospital. And there was evidence that Grandpa might not be her mother’s father.
Reading the transcripts of her grandmother’s interviews with hospital staff, Mangin unearthed a dark secret at the heart of her mother’s childhood. Through her research, Mangin uncovered her French Canadian heritage and delved into the history of the care of the mentally ill in the early 20th century. She learned how poverty and mental illness loomed over the family’s fortunes. Using patient records, genealogical methods, and DNA testing, Mangin has pieced together a family story that reads like a Dickens novel. Weaving in what she learned about intergenerational trauma and the consequences of family secrets, Mangin has created a testament to the power of family history to empower people and heal old wounds.
Dinorah Metthe, Grandma’s sister, was one of five women on my mother’s side of the family who were mentally ill and had been committed to a state hospital. Mom had a letter (which I presume she found among Grandpa’s papers) from Kings Park State Hospital in New York. Dated October 11, 1954, it was addressed to Beatrice, with a memo line that read: “RE: Dinorah Metthe: deceased.” The hospital acknowledged the receipt of Dinorah’s divorce papers and some personal correspondence that Beatrice had sent them. How I wish Grandma hadn’t done this! These documents, which were subsequently filed in her patient record, would have revealed Dinorah’s state of mind, and perhaps provided additional details to the family story.
In 1953, two people from different worlds met in Ken-Gar. Will Adams was an elderly African American man from Ken-Gar, a predominantly Black neighborhood wedged between Kensington and Garrett Park in Montgomery County, Maryland. Mike Seeger was a young White man from upscale Chevy Chase, the son of two prominent music scholars. His older half-brother was Pete Seeger, the famous folk singer and banjo player. Mike Seeger made field recordings of Will Adams playing the fiddle, and old-time music history was made.
I wanted to know more about Adams, where he came from, and how he might have learned his music. While doing this research, I realized that his ancestry offers a glimpse into African American life in Montgomery County from the final years of slavery into the mid-twentieth century. In addition, the musical legacies of both men – Will Adams and Mike Seeger – live on to this day. Continue reading Will Adams, Fiddler of Ken-Gar→
Commonwealth Farm was a 119-acre property in Colesville that was owned by a women’s commune formed in the 1870s in Belton, Texas. They were called the Sanctified Sisters or Sanctificationists at first, but eventually became known as the Woman’s Commonwealth. Their beliefs were based on divine revelations received by their leader which espoused sanctification, non-sectarianism, and celibacy. They were economically self-sustaining, pooling their financial resources and living communally. In 1898, the commune moved from Texas to Washington, D.C. In 1903, they purchased the Colesville farm, where they raised dairy cattle, chickens, and pigs, and grew vegetables, fruit trees, corn, and wheat. For over four decades, the commune ran the Commonwealth Farm Inn and restaurant on the property, which became a popular spot for members of high-society and influential Washingtonians.
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