Remembering Rose Ellen Part 13: The South Bend Years-Rose Ellen’s death Rose Ellen lived at Carlyle Nursing Home for the next 13 years. I was 10 years old when she came to South Bend. I believe my sister Rosie did her sleuthing about two years after the move. In the next few weeks and months,...Read More

Remembering Rose Ellen Part 12: The dreaded side room “Rosie jumped out dorm window and ran away.” Then, after “straying” from the cottage, she is put in a side room. The staff note reads, “Rose is small in stature, eats good, wets the bed every night. She has strayed from the cottage, and had to...Read More

Remembering Rose Ellen Part 11: Moving Rose Ellen There was an early period where my grandparents feared Rose Ellen would be moved. A very polite exchange of letters took place then as well (dated March of 1962). The facility was growing rapidly and overcrowding and crumbling buildings were a constant threat even then. My grandparents...Read More

Remembering Rose Ellen Parts 9 & 10: Rose Ellen’s weekly letters home stop coming By the Fall of 1967, Papa Don and Grandmama had begun to seriously worry about Rose Ellen. In a letter from Papa Don to Mrs. Keren Young in the social work department, he expresses their worry. Dear Mr. Young, When we...Read More

Remembering Rose Ellen Part 8: A Birthday Party for Rose Ellen We celebrated a lot of birthdays at our house with nine kids, two parents and four grandparents. There were often more than one per month. My mother went all in on our birthdays. One year she took my whole Bluebird troop to the circus!...Read More

Remembering Rose Ellen Post 7: A Snapshot of Rose Ellen’s Correspondence Correspondence from my Grandmama and Papa Don and the staff included subjects such as notifications and requests to visit her or take her on summer vacation, her personal belongings and wardrobe, her daily activities and occasional mention of a social event she took part...Read More

Remembering Rose Ellen Part 6: Losing Ground Over the years at Fort Wayne, Rose Ellen seems to decline. When she entered the institution, she was a young woman who could compose a coherent letter in cursive and knew the multiplication tables, but during testing in 1951she is described as “depressed and homesick and called attention...Read More

Remembering Rose Ellen Part 5: Evaluating Rose Ellen In my work as a clinician, my first introduction to a child and their family often came from previous evaluations and reports. I too, wrote evaluations not all that different from what I read in the Indiana State archives. Learning about Rose Ellen from this clinical perspective,...Read More

Remembering Rose Ellen Part 4: The Indiana State Archives: Rose Ellen was admitted to The Indiana State School for Feeble-Minded Children in Fort Wayne, IN, in January 1933 at 19 years of age. She spent 38 years there. To receive the documents from the Indiana State Archives required a simple form.  I filled out the...Read More

Rose Ellen:Birth to Age 6 1913-1919 My grandparents had more than their fair share of difficulties starting a family. Their first daughter, Virginia, was born on May 21, 1911 and died just a few days later, on June 4, 1911. My Mother, Lou Ann, was born 17 years later, when her mother was 43 years...Read More