Whitfield

My dad's mother was mentally ill, too. I don't have many of the details. A fuzzy story about her standing in front of Rich's department store in downtown Atlanta, handing out money to the passersby, introducing herself as the Virgin Mary and Dad as baby Jesus. A low-voiced remark about shock treatment. Bitter memories from Dad about all the time he spent with his grandparents, while his mom was in the hospital. I've heard she was diagnosed bipolar.

By the time I knew her she just seemed, well, odd. She loved to shop for bargains, and had all kinds of strange things under her bed. Lots of underwear that were unlikely to fit anyone she knew. She made us ice cream floats with Tab (blech, but we drank them politely) and fed us those wafery cookies with the creme centers. I loved her, but never felt the bond that I did with Grandmama Moore. (Here's a picture of me with both my grandmamas on my sixth birthday. Dad's mom is in the foreground.)

Considering all that, it's fascinating to me that Dad's first real job was in a mental hospital. After he left Southern Seminary in Louisville, he got a job as chaplain at the Mississippi State Mental Hospital in Whitfield, 15 miles from the state capital, Jackson. Mom tells the story that when they went for his first interview, they got lost on the way, and stopped to ask for directions to Whitfield. The friendly fellow at the gas station replied, "well, you just start acting crazy, and they'll take you right to it." Dad actually worked there twice, from 1953 to '55, and 1961 to '63 (again, there's a link, if you want to see what it looks like today).

What must that have been like--a state mental hospital, in Mississippi, in the early 50's? And knowing that your own mother experienced this treatment, and maybe even worse, in the decades before? To me, it sounds like the stuff of horror movies. And there he was, providing spiritual sustenance and support to patients and families inside the asylum's brick walls. Trying to give them hope.

I wonder if he had any nightmarish glimpses of his own simmering demons.