Handwriting help, please

mrs sauco.clyde street,croydon pak brenda xxx

[Olde Crone Holden]

Mary

I told you I was wittering, lol - I was just following my own train of thought that just because the daughter had schizophrenia,(if indeed she did) didn't mean that was what her father had.

Sorry, can't help with faulty. The one file I have seen said "unclean in the bed every night this week" lol.

OC

[Mary from Italy]

Anyone know what "faulty" means in an early 20th-century mental health context?

It appears once in this file, and numerous times in the daughter's file. I get the impression that it may mean "incontinent", but I can't find any confirmation. Nothing helpful on the Antiquus Morbus site.

[Mary from Italy]

It was the daughter who had schizophrenia, not the father

And I agree that their illnesses were probably not related.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Oh, I agree, Alzheimer's develops gradually, and he may have had quite a few years of just being "a bit odd" but of no concern to anyone but his wife.

Most of the people I have known who have had Alzheimer's, have seemed perfectly fine to me one day, then the next I hear they are in a home, or a hospital, or whatever.

General discussion then throws up minor incidences of strangeness, but because no one was actually living with them, it wasn't noticed until it became critical.

69 is very late in life to develop schizophrenia, I think. It normally manifests itself in late adolescence or early adulthood.

Sorry - this is pointless wittering, I know, but I am always very suspicious of any diagnosis of mental illness back then, and I don't think the daughter's illness and the father's illness are necessarily related.

OC

[Mary from Italy]

If he was in a fragile state of mind, then the reminder of his age might have had some great significance for HIM that would not seem relevant to anyone else, I auppose.

Yes, true.

And there may have been other news of the "your cousin Fred has died" variety.

That's what I was expecting to find, yes.

Is there any clue from the daughter's file?

No, the daughter was admitted to the asylum 3 years later, 6 months after her mother died. From what I can gather she was probably always a bit backward, although she did manage to go to school, and her occupation's given as "domestic servant", but she was very upset by her mother's death, and went downhill from there. She was eventually diagnosed with dementia praecox, which according to Wikipedia is what we now know as schizophrenia. She seems to have deteriorated horrendously in the asylum, and never went home again.

According to Thomas's file he'd never had any previous episodes of insanity, which is why I wouldn't think he had Alzheimer's, which develops gradually. As you say, it could have been caused by an untreated physical illness, although there's no mention of that in the file.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Mary

If he was in a fragile state of mind, then the reminder of his age might have had some great significance for HIM that would not seem relevant to anyone else, I auppose. And there may have been other news of the "your cousin Fred has died" variety.

Trouble is, diagnosis was so poor back then and it is difficult to know what, if any, "mental" illness he was suffering from - it may have been Alzheimer's and his sudden death was nothing to do with that. Or it could have been any one of many physical conditions, which left untreated, cause "insanity".

Is there any clue from the daughter's file?

OC

[Mary from Italy]

True, I hadn't thought of that

Poor man. My grandfather signed to have him committed to the asylum, but he only lived for another 10 days. I assume he must have had vascular dementia or something of the kind.

The second file, which I'm still wading through, relates to his daughter Annie, who was in the asylum for 40 years - that one's very harrowing. I had no idea Margaret had been in one too - if it is her. Annie's file also says her cousin (mother's sister's son) was in an asylum - still trying to work out which cousin that was.

And I'm waiting for two more files for relatives on the English side of the family who were in asylums. Not very festive reading.

[KiteRunner]

I suppose it's possible, if he believed that the God-given life-span of a man was "three-score years and ten"?

[Mary from Italy]

Well, actually it does say that Thomas didn't know his age, so they wrote home and the answer came back that he'd be 70 next birthday. Surely that wasn't it?

[Mary from Italy]

This file's so frustrating - in two places, the relatives are asked what they think brought on the attack of insanity, and they say "letters from home" (Thomas had emigrated to Australia from Ireland decades earlier). I read through the file with bated breath to see what was in the letters... and it doesn't say :(

[Mary from Italy]

That he talks away to people and keeps asking her to look and find but

Yes, could be.

(I think the "to" between "her " and "look" was written below with an insert mark)

No, sorry, I didn't copy the extract very well. That loop's just part of the date on the line below.

[Olde Crone Holden]

"and replies(?) asking her Look and Find out"

Agree, I think a bit missing from the RH of the page.

OC

[KiteRunner]

Oh, sorry, just realised you said the bit below that last line was date and signature. In that case, the word "to" isn't there!

[KiteRunner]

I thought it was "lost all care of his house, fowls etc." too.
And the second one I think is "That he talks away to people and keeps asking her to look and find but" (I think the "to" between "her " and "look" was written below with an insert mark)

[Mary from Italy]

Here's another part of the file that I'm having trouble with:



This is what I have so far:

1) Ellen Cassidy (his wife) says that he has lost ...? (maybe "lost all care of his house, fowls, etc."??)

2) that he talks away to people and keeps asking her look? and find out?

There's nothing below the last line except the date and signature. I'm wondering if part of the right-hand side of the page has been torn off. I just have a photocopy on pdf.

[Mary from Italy]

Google tells me it is in Sydney!

Sorry, I forgot to mention they were in Australia :-)

[Mary from Italy]

I've found the date written again on another page. If anything it's even harder to read, but the last-but-one number does look a lot more like a 6 than an 0, which throws this part of my tree into disarray.



The part I've circled in red probably says "Daughter adm. MHCP 4/8/6?"

The hospital was Callan Park Asylum, which seems to be abbreviated elsewhere to MH CP, presumably standing for Callan Park Mental Hospital.

[KiteRunner]

I was just going to go onto Historical Directories to see if I could find a street listing for Clyde Street, Croydon Park to see the surnames of the people there, but Google tells me it is in Sydney!

[Mary from Italy]

Yes, I thought it was an L - maybe Lanco, Larico, something like that. But his daughter's name at the time was Sarah McHugh...

Her previous names were Sarah Fallon and Sarah Kelly, but it looks nothing like any of them.