Weird things found on the internet...

[jhetley]

...personal connections division.

Okay, there's this internet site devoted to a particular subset of Victorian-era insane asylums (or  state hospitals, the polite term).  Which I found featured in one of my junk-mail architectural magazines.  And one of the asylums listed:

http://www.kirkbridebuildings.com/buildings/traversecity/

The personal connection -- my grandfather ran the place for about a decade, back around the turn of the previous century, and my mother was born there.  We have, downstairs, an inlaid walnut cribbage board and a "Petoskey Stone" napkin ring made by inmates as presents to the family...

Comments

[cailleuch.livejournal.com]

Growing up on a dairy farm in Vermont the "agricultural aspect" as you call it is something you don't forget. Must have been interesting in the day because most of the old downtown seems to me to have been downwind of the Hospital.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

According to my mother, yes, you could smell it at the Hannah and Lay Docks if the wind was right. Her family moved from the Superintendent's House to a place on South Union when her father was promoted to another state post, but the memories followed them...