“See if you can get me on it. I’ll leave at once. Rather, as soon as I telegraph Shaftesbury and ask for a meeting with his Scottish counterpart. Hurry! Send the telegram while I pack a bag.”
She traveled through the night, her first-ever visit to London and her first-ever meeting with the Duke of Argyll, where she would press her petition and hope to thwart the powers that be from leaving Charles and others to languish without a voice.
She sat beside mailbags, the feather on her hat weaving and bobbing to the rhythm of the train clacking on the tracks. She dozed and once woke surprised at where she was, nestled among canvas in a darkened car. What would her grandmother say about her granddaughter without a dowry now riding between sacks of missives? She hadn’t needed a dowry. She had married her ambition to relieve suffering, and like any marriage, she imagined, there were bumps and bounces in the road. But if she could bring humanity to the Charleses of Scotland—or even beyond—she would believe she had done enough.
She arrived in the early morning in London without an opportunity to refresh herself. More disheveled than she preferred, she curtsied to the earl while gushing her admiration for his work. Then they crossed a cobbled courtyard to meet the Duke of Argyll. The stately man listened and nodded. The earl interjected his support. When she finished, unlike President Pierce, the duke assured her that he understood and agreed with her concerns for Charles and others like him in Scotland.
“We will make this happen,” he said, “and be forever grateful that you have raised the importance. We Scots salute you.”
“Thank you, your lordship. Thank you.”
She stepped out into the smog of London and coughed, but not because she suspected an illness was coming on. She had never felt stronger nor more completed in a task. She spotted a mercantile with children’s toys in the window and went inside the musty establishment, where she purchased a music box and a toy boat. On second thought, she bought a harmonica. All for Charles. She would return to Scotland and cajole and charm the supporters into finding a better place for the boy until the duke could make good on his promise. Great transformations took time, but the care of each little one could not wait. She would intervene as she could, as she had her entire life, sometimes winning, sometimes failing, but doing what she was called to do. She would relieve the suffering of others and thus relieve her own. She would do that one Charles at a time.
That night she wrote to Anne: “I shall see their chains off. I shall take them into the green fields and show them the lovely little flowers and the blue sky, and they shall play with the lambs and listen to the song of the birds and ‘a little child shall lead them.’ ”
Epilogue
1869
“I think I have everything essential, though what one takes to the West I hardly know for certain.” Dorothea surveyed her trunk in the middle of the living room in the Trenton apartment.
A nurse helped her pack and scanned the room and her bookshelves. “You haven’t taken everything,” she laughed.
“No. I’ll be back. This is home.” She would leave behind mementos from her trips, the little boat returned to her when Charles the Scot died in his sleep at the asylum he had been moved into as a boy. If only Charles had had more time in safety. Dorothea sighed. The commission to oversee all aspects of Scottish care, including those in home care, had made such a difference to many relieved of their reason. She had helped. A seashell graced the bookcase, smaller than her St. Croix one, from the Channel Islands where she had brought reform. A carved box from Germany. She wasn’t sure where she had put the shawl she had bought in France, but the lace from Holland she planned to give as a gift. From Italy she had a coin as a remembrance of her audience with Pope Pius IX where she had said, “Six thousand priests, three hundred monks, three thousand nuns, and a spiritual sovereign with temporal power has not assured for the miserable insane a decent much less intelligent care.” The pope had heard her. Things had changed in Italy; she had kept track. The same for Turkey and Russia. From England she had taken a cutting from a yew tree planted at the grave of her favorite poet, Thomas Gray. She had planted it outside the Trenton hospital. “Be sure that the yew tree gets watered.”
“I will.”
“Don’t forget.” Was she getting cranky in her old age? She softened her tone. “What should I bring back from California and the Oregon and Washington Territories?”
“You’ll bring back good news. There’s been so much progress since your early surveys before the war.”
Yes. The war, the terrible war that banished slavery from the land and on both sides saw suffering beyond anyone’s imagination. It would be good to be in the West without the ravages of great cities or daily seeing the veterans with their amputations and unseen wounds. She had served as head of nursing during the war but had not enjoyed it. Dealing with doctors who did not think women could relieve suffering was worse than working with legislators. She needed a new trip where she would visit with a former student in Oregon and see the Hawthorne hospital her student said was a model of moral treatment.
“I guess I’m ready,” she said. “Have them come for my trunk.” She took the leash hanging at the back of the writing desk chair and clipped it to her spaniel’s collar. “Ready, Precious?” A benefit of not traveling quite so much was keeping a pet. What a joy the dog was. The patients loved her too.
Dorothea, cane in hand, and Precious walked down three levels of steps. Dorothea’s sixty-seven years were beginning to wear on her knees. But she was invigorated by the idea of a journey across a vast continent. She would see new fields, new mountains, new towns, new rivers, and at the end, visit with old friends. These were her dowry, the one she never needed: the riches of the land, her students, this small dog, and improving the lives of those who needed her most.
“Just remember to open your arms, Dolly, and learn to receive as well as achieve,” Elizabeth Rathbone had whispered in her ear when she had left England thirteen years before. “You are cherished by many and I believe by God Himself for all you’ve done in this world to speak for those without a voice. You have been enough.”
She prayed that it was so.
“Now to see what is left to do, Precious.” She lifted the dog, tossed her cane into the stage, then stepped up to begin yet another journey on her purposeful life.
Readers Guide
1. Dorothea Dix had great talent, which was demonstrated through her success as a writer, teacher, and reformer. What social norms of the time prevented her from using these talents in a more public way to bring about the changes she sought? Do any of these restrictions exist today?
2. The author suggests that Dorothea’s mother was “unavailable” and that her father was abusive and unreliable. How did these parental responses to life’s challenges affect Dorothea? Were there options she could have chosen to improve her life and the life of her brothers that she didn’t choose?
3. Dorothea and her colleagues had a conversation about whether asylums kept society safe from the mentally ill or whether the mentally ill needed protection from society. What are your thoughts about this? Is treatment part of the social contract? Do we have to look after those less fortunate? How well are we addressing the needs of the mentally ill today?
4. The great novelist Willa Cather wrote that the “most basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.” I think as readers we’re attracted to stories that derive from that period of our own lives. Perhaps that’s why children and young adult novels can be as compelling as adult works. Cather, a Pulitzer Prize winner, also suggested that the two great emotions that drive such stories are “passion and betrayal.” I would add “acceptance and forgiveness,” that those are the emotions we connect with inside stories. What betrayals did Dorothea experience? How did she respond to these betrayals? Were her responses healthy? What were her passions? What was her greatest ambition? Did she seek acceptance? forgiveness? How were those journeys portrayed?
5. What role d
id children play in the life of Dorothea Dix? How might Dorothea’s life have been different if she had been able to adopt Marianna Cutter or live with her or have her brothers at Orange Court? Would you say Dorothea was a good steward of her pain? Why or why not?
6. Dorothea initially did not support the abolition of slavery and believed that women’s suffrage was a waste of time. Does a social reformer need to be so focused on one avenue only? What other true believers come to mind in bringing about social change? How would their personalities differ or be similar to Dorothea’s?
7. The Rathbones were Quakers. Dorothea had friends that were pastors and Harvard Divinity School students. What role did faith play in Dorothea’s life as an activist? Would you agree with Elizabeth Rathbone’s view that Dorothea was much like the older brother in the story of the prodigal son who struggled with how to receive the love of the father? Why or why not?
8. Dorothea’s land bill failed at a time of debate over the role of the federal government and states’ rights. President Franklin Pierce vetoed the bill on the basis that the federal government only had a role in the states if the law enhanced economic development within the states. Did such an argument change after the Civil War? Does this argument resonate today? Could Dorothea get her national charity bill passed today? Why or why not?
9. Where was Dorothea most at home? Who was her family? Why do you think Dorothea resisted the social requirements related to marriage? What choices did a woman of the 1830s have to be independent? Could she have married and still been an activist?
10. Were you ever called as Dorothea was to act courageously to make a difference in the lives of others? How did you respond? Is that door still open? What would it take for you to walk through it?
Author Interview
The tapestry of history has no point in which you can cut it and leave the design intelligible.
—DOROTHEA DIX
Question: What drew you to this story of reformer Dorothea Dix?
Answer: When I was seven I sat in a church pew in a rural Wisconsin town. While we waited for the service to start, a girl with a waddle walk and unusual facial features sauntered in with her mother and thumped onto the pew beside my mom. I’d never seen a child with such a broad forehead, with gums that seemed to swallow her teeth, and eyes narrow and darting from side to side. She swung her feet and wiggled and made grunting sounds that her mother shushed to no avail. Her arms danced without music. As the choir sang, the girl calmed and stared, but when the pastor spoke in our Methodist church, she again kicked and wiggled. My mom put her arm around the girl and pulled her to her side. She patted her shoulder and gave the girl a pad and pencils. She scribbled and entertained herself throughout the rest of the service, with my mom—a nurse—holding her in comfort to her side. Later, when the girl’s mother thanked my mom, I could see relief in the mother’s eyes that they had sat beside someone who took the girl in rather than moved farther away. I asked what was wrong with her, and my mom said she had seizures and other problems and hadn’t been able to go to school. She’d been in an institution, but her parents had wanted to bring her home, despite people’s saying they should just leave her where she had been since she was a baby. She didn’t talk. When I learned a few years later that she had died, I remember feeling great sadness though I didn’t really know her; I never had. That encounter drew me later into my profession and this story.
Q: You’re a mental health professional, right, with a master’s degree in psychiatric social work? What has been your experience in mental health treatment?
A: My undergraduate degree is in communications and public address. Later, I worked in public welfare with families and realized I needed more training to help those who were mentally ill. After graduate school I came to Oregon and worked in the disabilities field, eventually becoming the director of a mental health clinic. Still later I worked with young children as an educational and mental health consultant on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, where my work was a blend of administration and direct treatment. I did that for seventeen years before turning my healing hopes to stories. The lives of those I met in institutions and in their homes were with me in the writing of this book, as were those who came into our clinic day-treatment facilities seeking help to manage their lives of mental and emotional confusion and the suffering of friends and families that often resulted from the mental illness of those they loved. Law enforcement, hospital emergency rooms, jailers, and mental health workers are all a part of my experience and this story.
Q: What resources were most helpful in your research for One Glorious Ambition?
A: Biographers David Gollaher (Voice for the Mad: The Life of Dorothea Dix), Margaret Muckenhoupt (Dorothea Dix: Advocate for Mental Health Care), and Thomas J. Brown (Dorothea Dix: New England Reformer) led me to know Dorothea as more than a reformer. She struggled with her social role in a time when women were not allowed a place in public life without risking their reputation and possible loss of their femininity. Her fractured relationships recounted through letters kept by her many correspondents also brought insights about her work and her faith. Conversations with award-winning film director and screenwriter Charles Kiselyak helped crystallize those qualities of her character that I most wanted to emphasize: her passion and devotion, and her longing for family. Dwight Sweezy, retired chaplain at the Trenton Psychiatric Hospital in New Jersey, provided the buttonhook story as well as an awareness of the role of the many women in Dorothea’s life and how they challenged and supported her. The real inspiration goes to Dr. Dean Brooks, former superintendent of the Oregon State Hospital, who many years ago told me that I needed to novelize Dorothea’s story to bring to light that more than one hundred fifty years later we still struggle as a nation with the care of the mentally ill. Now in his nineties, Dr. Brooks continues to work out his passion for the mentally ill. He has transferred this legacy to his family members. Dennie (a social worker), India (a community health advocate), Ulista (a psychiatrist), and their families carry light into the next generation that we might find a way to truly make a difference in the lives of others. Dr. Brooks continues to promote changes in the system of care and to bring the stories of the mentally ill to the public in compassionate ways. He was a primary influence in the filming of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest at the Oregon State Hospital. I’m grateful that he also encouraged award-winning filmmaker Charles Kiselyak to write a screenplay blending both Dorothea’s past and the current challenges for those needing mental health services. Dr. Brooks and his children were instrumental in creating a mental health museum in Salem, Oregon, as part of the state mental hospital where Dorothea’s work as both a mental health reformer and a teacher are honored. A bust of her by renowned sculptor John Houser of Santa Fe is there honoring Dorothea’s life as well.
Q: What happened in Dorothea’s later life? You allude to her work during the Civil War. What did she do there?
A: After her successes in Scotland and Europe, Dorothea returned to the United States in 1856 and involved herself in the construction of two new asylums and then spent time in Pennsylvania, raising funds for a school for mentally impaired children. With the outbreak of the Civil War, Dorothea turned her desire to relieve suffering to those with battlefield injuries. While she was named the head of nurses and had a military pass from President Lincoln directing “all persons in official charge of Hospitals, to render at all times every facility to Miss D. L. Dix,” her tendency to strong opinions got in her way. I found one notation in which Dorothea cared for a volunteer nurse named Louisa May Alcott, and then she insisted the young nurse get away from the sicknesses that pervaded army hospitals. Fortunately for readers, Miss Alcott did. Historians note that Dorothea was never accepted nor appreciated by military physicians—or nurses—for her efforts as a supervising nurse.
At the close of the war, Dorothea again surveyed the asylums in the South to attest to the damages done to their facilities. It’s reported that she was well received in the South,
and as a result, she learned of and helped thwart an assassination attempt on Lincoln’s life. After his election and before his inauguration, Dorothea shared what she knew with a railroad president about a Southern plan to cut off railroad access by Union soldiers in Washington DC, to take Lincoln’s life and name the new Confederacy as the federal government. The administration was sufficiently alarmed by the details Dorothea confided that Alan Pinkerton was dispatched to determine the strength of the conspiracy. Upon his recommendation, the planned route for Lincoln to arrive into Washington for his inauguration was changed. She refused any public recognition for this effort, but perhaps she redeemed herself, as she pursued justice for the mentally ill, within her circle of abolitionist friends who thought she had closed her eyes to slavery. Dorothea also offered nursing support when she learned of the illnesses of the Lincolns’ children. The offer was declined, but following Willie’s death, the Lincolns did request her recommendation for young Tad that he might not succumb to the same illness as Willie. Dorothea readily complied. One wonders, too, if she did not have a special affinity to Mary Todd Lincoln’s emotional state as there is evidence that Dorothea’s mother and Mrs. Lincoln suffered from similar severe emotional distresses. Her relationships with the Lincolns could be a novel by itself!
In the late 1860s, while in her sixties, Dorothea initiated yet another tour of facilities, these in Washington, Oregon, and California. She visited a former student in Oregon (whose name we do not know but who was identified in this novel as Shelley Mason). Dorothea sent books ahead “to a former student.” While in the Northwest, she visited the private hospital for the insane operated by James Hawthorne, who had also contracted with the state of Oregon to provide care. She proclaimed it a worthy hospital. It appears she never stopped working, never stopped caring about those less fortunate than herself, never stopped relieving the suffering of many.