Up to 7000 forgotten gravesites being uncovered at Eloise

[Lowell]

A chilling yet sweetly sad story aired just now on WDIV 4 news.

An amateur group has discovered and is now uncovering the overgrown "potter's field" cemetery of the former Wayne County Eloise Hospital complex. Eloise has served as poor house, mental hospital and tuberculosis sanitorium.

About 400 grave markers, simple concrete markers with a only a number on them, have been revealed so far.


Up to 7000 may be there, under the overgrown sod. Most of those buried are thought be victims of TB, the poor and the unclaimed dead.


Does anyone else find it remarkable that it would be completely overgrown - that not at least one relative would visit and maintain the marker of a loved one from so many? Maybe there was but it was not mentioned in the piece. Time has also passed. It was said they burials took place between 1910 and 1945.

Link to Wikipedia entry on Eloise Cemetery

[mikefmich]

The problem with many of these kinda places Lowell, that they kept lousy records as to who went with what number, and if they did have them they'd play dumb with any kinfolk who might show up to inquire.

I have a g-g-uncle & a cousin buried at Western Ky State Hospital before the rest of the family moved to Shiawassee Co. As the story goes they used wooden markers, and a brush-field fire destroyed them all years ago. If you go there & ask about it they get real defensive & tight lipped about it.

There is one little bench in the field, if you go into the field or walk around in there, if someone sees you they will come out and say you're trespassing & need to leave. It's BS....but sadly it's what it is.

[Jimaz]

Video at the link: Hidden Eloise graves uncovered in Westland

[RO_Resident]

They should look into the Hart Island Project. A group is doing the same for New York City's potter's field.
https://www.hartisland.net/

[CassTechGrad]

The local group that has been searching the Eloise site for unmarked graves has just made a startling discovery. Could this be the true long lost site for Jimmy????????????

[Pam]

Thanks to the volunteers for their work.

[jackie5275]

Does anyone else find it remarkable that it would be completely overgrown - that not at least one relative would visit and maintain the marker of a loved one from so many? Maybe there was but it was not mentioned in the piece. Time has also passed. It was said they burials took place between 1910 and 1945.

I do not. I worked at the old Wayne County General Hospital/Health Dept just as all these, plus the Eloise complex were closing under the Lucas administration. I can tell you that the cemetery truly was a potter's field. Most of the patients who died with no family or next of kin who wanted to claim the body were buried there. The numbers on the grave markers correspond to their patient number. It's not a grave number. In the late 1980s, I want to say something like 1988 or 1989, Frank Rembisz, who was the director of the Office on Aging was given the assignment to research the records to match up patient numbers with names as the intent was to put proper headstones with names on the graves of these folks. I remember when he first got the assignment thinking "Why are they giving a director just a tedious job that should be given to someone in a lower job class?" Anyway, from time to time, I'd teasingly ask him how his "project" was progressing. He was always eager to tell me about it. During our conversations, he told me pretty much many of the records were already gone. He was able to identify about 200-300 during his time on the assignment. When he retired, it stopped as it was no longer considered important by the administration at the time. I think he worked on it for 5-6 yrs.

Regarding the next of kin, many of these folks went ignored when put into Eloise & unclaimed when they died, probably because of the stigma of mental health or the fear of TB back then. Based on that why would any family who didn't bother with them alive want to visit a grave? Additionally, many of these folks have been long dead, a minimum of 70 years. Those family that still may be around with knowledge and/or a care of their Eloise relative have probably moved on. Daily life tends to do that to folks.

Regarding the records, it wasn't a much a matter of keeping lousy records as it was a matter of maintaining & storing records. As community based mental health efforts started in the 1970s, followed by Wayne County's financial problems in the 1980s, the patients at Eloise got released in large volumes. Remember Eloise was huge complex, equivalent to a small town. They had around 20 buildings. As one building emptied and stopped being used, it now became a storage building. Records were stored all over the place with no consistency. I remember walking around some and seeing all kinds of records just stashed in any open space available. Plus, you had teenage explorers, etc going through the unused buildings trashing everything they felt like including records. You can see how it would be hard to find the patient records when you were looking for them 40+ years after the burials stopped.

Regarding the cemetery being overgrown & unattended, that all comes down to priorities of the administration. Much of Eloise just sat unused after all the patients were discharged. As I said earlier, the County had a lot of financial problems in the 1980s, so maintenance wasn't a big priority. The cemetery did have some maintenance during most of the McNamara administration. However, it seems that once most of the area was sold & redeveloped, and during most of the Ficano administration, maintenance of the cemetery was not a priority. My personal opinion is that it just fell off the radar of those depts responsible, Public Health & Public Services, not just the maintenance, but the very existence of the cemetery. The Friends of Eloise group has been doing some lawn cutting with help from a nearby cemetery, but they report the County is going to start doing it again next year.
Much of what has happened to that cemetery and the Eloise records has primarily that they've been the victims of the ravages of time. Unfortunate, but true.

[Ray1936]

Excellent post, Jackie. Well stated.

[downtownguy]

^^. Ditto. Thanks for that background, Jackie.

[mikefmich]

Regarding the records, it wasn't a much a matter of keeping lousy records as it was a matter of maintaining & storing records.

Is not maintaining and storing part & parcel a part of keeping good records? IMHO if they were good, one would not have had to spend years figuring things out, and only coming up with a few hundred names of the thousands that are there.

[EastsideAl]

I believe my great grandmother may have been buried there.

[Dumpling]

Current status of Project Eloise: Digging halted by Wayne County, groups
to collaborate [[hopefully):

http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/n...loise-cemetery

[Mackenzie68]

During the depression, it was common to bury more than casket in a grave. Graves were expensive, stacking was often done. I wonder if the same thing may have been done at Eloise?

[jackie5275]

Is not maintaining and storing part & parcel a part of keeping good records? IMHO if they were good, one would not have had to spend years figuring things out, and only coming up with a few hundred names of the thousands that are there.

To me, keeping records refers to the actual record taking, as in say a patient's chart, what happened to the patient while in the hospital. Once the patient was discharged, the record is no longer kept, it goes into storage. As you say lousy record keeping, to me, that implies part of the record [[the chart), is incomplete, has missing data, or inaccurate data.

[Honky Tonk]

To me, keeping records refers to the actual record taking, as in say a patient's chart, what happened to the patient while in the hospital. Once the patient was discharged, the record is no longer kept, it goes into storage. As you say lousy record keeping, to me, that implies part of the record [[the chart), is incomplete, has missing data, or inaccurate data.

I think he's referring to records kept as to what happened to the patient while under Eloise's care. Marking a patient "Discharged" upon their death, and putting them in a mass grave does not fit the description of good or responsible record keeping, IMO.

[Gistok]

This is certainly a mess... but 70 years have already passed.

Americans tend to think that a grave should be forever. But in highly populated parts of the world, this is not the case. For example in Germany, you are only allowed to be buried in a wooden coffin [[none of this permanent coffin to last a lifetime).... Reason for the wood requirement is so that the bodies decompose within 15-25 years. Read about it here....

http://www.stripes.com/news/europe/g...rmany-1.109232

No such thing as an eternal burial plot...

[Jimaz]

... Americans tend to think that a grave should be forever....

New Orleans has some unique burial traditions.

The water table there is so high that they must use above-ground tombs instead. Many of them are multistory and after a body decomposes, the bones are pushed to the back down a chute through which they fall to make room for a new body.

They're featured prominently in Easy Rider - Cemetery Acid Trip - 1969 [[HQ) [[beginning at the 2:00 mark).

See Cities of the Dead for more.

[Dumpling]

I went looking online to see how long the Copper Country, Michigan copper
coffin fad lasted. [[These coffins were not lightweight as per oral tradition).
Did not find enough on that subject. Did find an interesting tidbit on page
103 of Phil Mason's Henry Hobart's Copper Country Journal concerning a
tavern at the foot of Woodward in Detroit:

[Dumpling]

Henry Hobart was a most excellent record keeper - the following story was set
down in March 1863. Henry Hobart came from New England and was apparently
a committed member of the Yankee temperance movement [[this was not too
appreciated by non-Yankees).
"Related by the Rev. Mr. Baughman. At the foot of Woodward Avenue in the city
of Detroit near the river stands an old French tavern stand, one end of which
projects over the river. One spring the water was quite high and the floor being
full of cracks the water dashed up through the floor. It was a wretched place.
The speaker was requested to visit the place where he found two children dead
and one in the corner on a pile of filthy rags dying. The wife of the man was in
there in a wretched state. The husband was taken to jail drunk for abusing his
family. The speaker promised to attend the funeral next day & doing so found the
three children dead. They were placed in coffins in the city hearse & when they
started for the graveyard, sad to tell, the mother lay in one corner of the room
in a state of beastly intoxication. What a scene, two bright little boys, one ten &
the other eight, and a little girl of six, carried to the grave in consequence of
abuse from drunken parents who both died drunk after this."

[Dumpling]

The Mt. Elliott cemetery website has a little bit more.

From www.mtelliott.com ,

Chapoton, Eustache.
b. 2-20-1792 d. 1-13-1871
Bur. sec. 60 Lot 1025.

"Opened a tavern at the foot of Woodward, but gave it up after a sermon at
St. Anne Church denounced the evil of selling liquor to Indians. He then became
a builder..."

[Dumpling]

The Detroit Yes website has a drink stir stick from Chapoton Bar at 22512 Mack
Avenue. I don't know what if any connection they have to the original tavern
stand at the foot of Woodward, but there is a little set of businesses in St. Clair
Shores in a block called "Chapoton Woods" [[never been there myself).

Dr. Mason used to teach at Wayne State University and post retirement has been
living in Eagle Harbor, Michigan.

[bust]

I went looking online to see how long the Copper Country, Michigan copper
coffin fad lasted. [[These coffins were not lightweight as per oral tradition).
Did not find enough on that subject.

I've attended only one funeral in Keweenaw county, in the late 1990's. And the coffin was copper, though surely not solid -- it was either painted a mettalic copper color or covered in copper leaf. One instance does not a trend make, but perhaps the fad continues.

I'm curious: where have you found information about the use of copper coffins in copper country? Of course I understood the reference at the funeral I attended, but I didn't realize it was a thing.

[Dumpling]

My Dad who is from the Keweenaw helped to lay a little old ancestor to
rest in an exceedingly heavy copper casket way back when. You are right -
one can still get a copper coffin up north from what I read about it. Not
sure how heavy they are. They look innocent online.

[jackie5275]

I think he's referring to records kept as to what happened to the patient while under Eloise's care. Marking a patient "Discharged" upon their death, and putting them in a mass grave does not fit the description of good or responsible record keeping, IMO.

HT, if someone left the facility while alive, they were discharged. If a patient died there, their record indicated they expired. No one who died there was considered discharged. No one was put in a mass grave. All patients who died there were put in individual graves.

[Honky Tonk]

HT, if someone left the facility while alive, they were discharged. If a patient died there, their record indicated they expired. No one who died there was considered discharged. No one was put in a mass grave. All patients who died there were put in individual graves.

Thanx, but then it goes back to shoddy record keeping. They obviously can't connect the simple numbers on the markers to a name. Either or, I find this very disturbing.