Senate Bill No. 256 -- March 16, 2009 Senator Mathews and Joint Sponsor Assemblywoman Smith
As promised, Senator Mathews and Assemblywoman Smith introduced a Bill which will designate the Old Asylum Cemetery as a historic cemetery in the State of Nevada. It will require the Office of Historic Preservation of the Department of Cultural Affairs to oversee maintenance and improvements to the cemetery and, to the extent of money available, will provide for appropriate fencing and a memorial monument.
We urge you to support the enactment of the Bill, which will designate this as a Historic Cemetery and provide for protection.
The Bill was passed by the Assembly today and will now go to the Senate.
Assemblymen Ty Cobb, Don Gustavson and Richard McArthur voted against SB 256 to create a Historic Cemetery to honor veterans and former patients.
State Preliminary Plan
If you have family buried in the cemetery or are interested in its preservation and memorial, please contact Candace Wheeler at candace1225@sbcglobal.net to provide your input.
Friends of Northern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services Cemetery is sharing our extensive research with the the State. If you wish to contact Friends with suggestions, please email Carolyn at mifieldni@yahoo.com. .
RESTORATION, PRESERVATION AND MEMORIALIZATION OF THE CEMETERY AT THE OLD NEVADA INSANE ASYLUM (now Northern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services), at the corner of 21st and North in Sparks, Nevada
"The dead can't speak, but if we listen closely we can hear their voices and stories in the cemeteries and graveyards where they are buried."
"These cemeteries remind us of the settlements that built them and the people who rest within them. They are among Nevada's historic treasures, and they must be preserved so their stories can be passed along." (Senator Harry Reid in Alkali Angels, by Marilyn Newton.)
The stories this cemetery might tell could be stories of horror, but may also help us to find and notify descendant family members of the final outcomes of the lives of their lost ancestors.
As many as 600 or more former patients, including Veterans and Native Americans, have been identified on the burial list and every person deserves to be remembered.
The issues and atrocities of this cemetery date back to its founding in 1882. Neglect and desecration at the Northern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services Cemetery have continued through many generations. Between 1882 and 1949 many patients found the hospital cemetery to be their final home. Plots were filled with souls who had lived tormented lives and in death were never granted the decency of a tranquil resting place and connection with their families.
The current generation of hospital administrators and politicians were not responsible for the history of the cemetery. They do, however, find themselves in a position to make some amends by providing a new future for the residents of the cemetery and their families. We hope to work together to provide the hospital with constructive ideas and supplemental private funds to help restore the dignity and respect the people buried at this cemetery deserve.
Instead of THIS
THIS is what those buried in the hospital cemetery get
SAVING THE PAST SUPPORTS A COMMUNITY
There are some who question preserving any cemetery. Restoring this and other historic cemeteries not only honors those there, it also benefits a community as a whole. In addition to preserving and honoring those from our past, work at this cemetery and others requires the services of fencing contractors, landscape companies, monument companies, concrete companies, and it requires graphic artists, printers, computers, sign makers, materials from local building centers, etc.
There is no negative to a community restoring and preserving a historic cemetery and saving a piece of our past.
The face of this cemetery might well be represented by Cora Wilcox Clark. Cora was the daughter of the well-known Wilcox family of Carson City. Her father, George Wilcox, was a Civil War veteran and a Mayflower passenger descendant. Cora led the usual life of the times, marrying young and having a family. Her life changed when her husband had her committed to the State Hospital in 1917. The reason given to her family was that he could not get along with her.
Cora would spend the next 25 years of her life at the State Hospital during some of the worst times of its history. Her family always corresponded with her and sent money for her clothing and other needs. They were never told to stop sending money for her care, but on a visit they were told she had previously "vanished". A death certificate was obtained a few years later showing that she died at the hospital in 1943 and was buried in the hospital cemetery. Cora had family in Carson City and her father, mother and brothers are all buried at Lone Mountain Cemetery. At the time of her death, the law required that family be notified. A death notice was to be published in a local paper. Neither of these things was done for Cora so her children were unable to bury her with her family according to their wishes. As was the custom at this hospital, and others across the country, she was buried on hospital grounds in the manner fitting an indigent as defined by the State of Nevada.
On the day of her death in 1943, her troubled life may have given way to a peaceful eternal rest, but the treatment and respect given to her remains was another story.
Nevada Insane Asylum Early 1900s, Courtesy of Nevada Historical Society
Mass Grave
The State Hospital in Sparks was in a very isolated area in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It was a working farm where the "inmates" raised animals and grew their own food. Burial procedures were most likely a do-it-yourself operation at the direction of the hospital administrators at that time.
There are hundreds of human remains at this cemetery. The current list from the Preservation Office shows just under 600 names, but several years of records are missing. Current estimates have the number around 600 or more. The boundaries of the cemetery extend as far north as the City of Sparks Maintenance Building at the corner of 21st and Fraser, west to the new Agriculture Building, south to North Street and the eastern boundary extended well beyond 21st Street toward Hymer. Record keeping was minimal and grave markers seemed at the whim of administrators of the times. A few graves had markers but most had none.
Robert Hope, a Civil War Veteran, was buried in March 1889. The grave of this Veteran is now lost forever.
In 1897, the body of S.W. Thomas was kept in the morgue so long his body was in an advanced stage of decomposition. The reason given was "because no funerals are permitted at the Hospital in the day time while patients are about the grounds." Burials were done at night often by inmates.
Throughout the years, the cemetery at this Nevada hospital has suffered neglect and horrendous acts. There are eyewitness accounts of the excavation of the asylum ditch through the hospital property in 1945. Those accounts tell of bodies being dredged from their graves by a dragline with body parts strewn about, of skulls being taken home and gold teeth removed. This work was proposed by the City of Sparks and approved by the hospital Superintendent. The project was contracted to Isbell Construction. There are accounts of watching workers dig graves too shallow, burying bodies in cardboard refrigerator boxes then jumping on the boxes to get the box to fit the hole before covering the grave.
In subsequent years, this desecration took another form in the name of progress. On March 28, 1949 the Nevada Legislature passed Assembly Bill No. 357. Section 3524.01 stated "it is hereby made the specific duty of the board of commissioners of the Nevada hospital for mental diseases to abolish the use of any cemeteries now located on the hospital grounds." There were apparently no provisions made for the care of the graves previously placed in the cemeteries.
Over the years, a road was constructed over part of the cemetery as well as a fire station (which is now the City of Sparks Maintenance Building). When 21st Street and North Street were constructed, bones discovered were moved to an "upper cemetery". When North Street was put in it was discovered that patients had been buried in tiers, three deep. Some bodies at that time were moved to a cemetery on Virginia Street above the University.
In 1959 the State, knowing this was a cemetery, leased the City of Sparks the land for Pinion Park. This was just ten years after the hospital "abolished" the use of the cemetery. Throughout the next few years, the City and volunteer groups, including the Sparks 20-30 Club, the Army Reserve, Parks and Recreation Commissions, and the Sparks Outreach Society, laid 300 yards of topsoil, installed sprinklers, fences, and installed a play structure. The park is on top of the known cemetery.
In 1977, 19 coffins were hit by a road grader. Even though the cemetery was not to be used any longer according to the 1949 law, the coffins were reburied in another location within the cemetery, making this an active cemetery.
In 2005 the Legislature approved a $91 million increase in the mental health budget, with plans for building a $4 million kitchen and a plan to renovate the site. Newspaper articles told of an estimated 40 graves north of the area of the proposed building. Newspaper articles quoted concerned politicians discussing the uproar that might be caused by moving the graves and musing over how someone would feel if a member of someone's family was buried there.
A member of someone's family is buried there. Cora is a perfect example. In fact, hundreds of families have someone buried there. Many families undoubtedly do not even know their family member is at the hospital cemetery.
There is a distinct difference between coming across an old archaeological site, such as finding a few bones while building a highway in the middle of nowhere, and desecrating a known publicly administered cemetery.During the former, it is totally acceptable and necessary to identify and relocate human remains when they are initially unknown and discovered.When this is a known, well-documented cemetery, however, there should be no planned projects on or in the cemetery, and work should be stopped if remains are encountered, not necessarily just by law, but by any standards of human decency.
This cemetery is not an old archaeological site just “discovered.”It contains graves of fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, cousins, grandparents, and great-grandparents of people living today, many of whom have yet discovered that the graves of their ancestors may have been desecrated or obliterated with no record of their present location.
The families of patients at the hospital entrusted the State of Nevada to care for their loved ones and this included an expectation that they would receive a decent burial (not one conducted during the dark of night so no patients would see someone being buried; not denied a religious service if so desired; not buried in cardboard boxes and jumped on by inmates; not dug up by excavation equipment; not dug up by road graders, reburied then dug up again; not left unidentified so families can never visit graves; not moved to other cemeteries when the graves are inconvenient; not used as a dog park, playground, or office buildings.)
These patients, who got no respect from the community and many times from the hospital itself, were, at the very least, entitled to a FINAL RESTING place; not a place later considered portable at the whim of the then-current hospital administration.The remains of these patients, all 600 of them, are entitled to the same respect given to any other person buried in a local cemetery. We are working with the State to see that they are properly honored.
RIGHTING THE WRONGS AND MOVING FORWARD
Nothing will ever change the wrongs that have been done to those buried in this cemetery, beginning with the disrespectful burials, and including the excavation of the ditch, the road and other projects.
Our group, working with the State, hopes to raise funds, and provide volunteer labor to accomplish some of the following:
1. Restore and preserve any artifacts, records, monuments, headstones, and grave markers of the cemetery .
2. Install a sign to designate this as an historic cemetery.
3. This site has a great deal of sagebrush and rabbit brush.Clean and cultivate around these existing plants to give a more pleasing appearance, while leaving the graves basically undisturbed.
4. Check all the names of those buried there to determine who were Civil War, Spanish American War or WWI Veterans. To date, we have identified one Spanish American War Veteran and several Civil War Veterans. All of our Veterans should be properly honored.
5. Work with the State to install a granite memorial within Pinion Park with the names of those buried in this cemetery. 6.Publish historical information regarding patient deaths and burials for use by genealogists and historians.
7. Develop a brochure for placement at the cemetery that will inform and educate the public about the history of the Nevada Insane Asylum (now Northern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services) and the cemetery.
Many hospital cemeteries across the country are being rededicated by placing memorial stones with names replacing numbers, planting gardens with walkways, installing fountains and supplying benches for reflecting. Our vision is to leave the main cemetery basically undisturbed, but fenced, and have a memorial placed within Pinion Park to honor the dead. This would provide a place for families to pay their respects and information for researchers. Many of the items for such cemetery renovation can come from generous donations from the community and do not need to be at a large cost. What is needed is just the will to get it done.
On another hospital cemetery project it was said by someone "Society has more respect for a pet cemetery than was evidenced by the abused and neglected human graves." Restoring this cemetery will send a message of apology for past wrongs and provide a positive message for the future of mental health care.
All known burials are being posted with indepth biographical information and transcripts of newspaper articles on www.findagrave.com under "Nevada," "Northern Nevada Mental Health Cemetery." This is an ongoing process as information is provided by researchers and families.
Our group is a Non-Profit corporation in Nevada and donations are tax deductible under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. We are also a National, State and Local member of NAMI.
If you or your civic group has an interest in helping to see that this cemetery is preserved, please contact Carolyn at mifieldni@yahoo.com for additional information.
Friends of Northern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services Cemetery P.O. Box 2114 Dayton, NV 89403
With a determined community we can make this happen!!!
This site is created by concerned citizens and is in no way affiliated with Northern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services
