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, through reports, forms and evaluations, brought out the detective in me. I scrutinized each descriptor, test score, and label for any thread of information I could glean. Putting the language into a historical perspective was immediately required. In her records, Rose Ellen is regularly described as a High Grade Imbecile, institutionally trained, a custodial type, frail, long limbs, short stature, slight muscular build. Personality type: low self-confidence, submissive, clinging behavior, shy, little initiate, often depressed mood. Crippled.
Rose Ellen was evaluated by the Psychiatric & Psychology departments at the Indiana School for Feeble-minded Youth in January 1933. She was 17 years old. Here is that report.
There are several other reports or pieces of reports in the archives that I began to list, trying to pull the pieces of Rose Ellen together. I learned she was small, measuring 4’8” and weighing as little as 73 lbs. and up to 94 lbs. Over the span of 3 decades. She was described as crippled. Her speech was difficult to understand, so she communicated by writing notes.
Her category of “High Grade Imbecile” was defined as having a mental age of three to seven years and an IQ of 25-50. This places her just above “idiot” (IQ below 25) and below “moron” (IQ of 51-70).
“Idiots: Those so defective that the mental development never exceeds that of a normal child of about two years.
Imbeciles: Those whose development is higher than that of an idiot, but whose intelligence does not exceed that of a normal child of about seven years.
Morons: Those whose mental development is above that of an imbecile but does not exceed that of a normal child of about twelve years.” (Huey, 1912)
Other traits and characteristics used to describe Rose Ellen included:
Staggering gait or unsteady enough to necessitate a self-contained cottage with feeding facilities and without steps.
Homosexual
Her behavior is controllable-often easily disturbed (acting out)
Frail, short and inactive
Cooperative and understanding
There are several staff notes describing Rose Ellen like this one: “She is no problem in the cottage, as she continually keeps herself busy writing notes or doing her knitting. She is currently making a rug. She likes to watch television” (Fort Wayne Hospital, 2023).
A letter dated 1957, lists her diagnosis as congenital spastic paraplegia.
Rose Ellen Diagnosis connected to Typhoid
A decade later, in 1967, Rose Ellen’s diagnosis was recorded as Encephalopathy due to postnatal cerebral infection, Bacteria (Typhoid).
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A Picture of Rose Ellen Emerges
As I process the description of Rose Ellen in the medical reports my mind spins trying to understand who exactly she was. I found myself trying to diagnose her, a ridiculous idea, given the limited information I had to go on. But, my good friend Abe Bergman, a Pediatrician with decades of experience, sent a description of her to his colleague to see if she brought any type of diagnosis to mind. He told us what we already knew that the information available was too limited. He asked if I could find a photo of her. But I knew that finding photos of her would be very unlikely. Not one photo has been found, even after searching the many boxes of family history in my brother’s spare bedroom. I sometimes imagined that she might look like the photos of my mom as a child. But now her own picture is developing. I see her as a small child and then as a young adult, the descriptions of her come into a bit clearer focus. I have a feeling that I know this kind of girl. She’s like many I have fallen in love with over the years. As I take in all 200 plus pages of the archives, the first vague picture comes into greater focus. Since there are no lasting photos of Rose Ellen my mind is free to create. I see her climbing out the window to search for her friend. I see her being proud of her sewing and her attachment to her caretaker. I really see her personality when she states defiantly, in a letter to my grandmama that she will “write this every week until I do get them” referring to a thermos she was expecting to get.
Dear Mother,
Thank you for the nice letter. Yet, Mother Dear I did get my pillowcase to embroider but not my thermos bottle. I don’t know why? I will write this every week until I do get it.
Daughter
Rose Ellen
As I read through the notes, I came to understand the source of my grandparents’ worry and concern for her since birth. My grandparents state in reports about her early years that it was difficult to get her to eat as an infant. How that made my heart ache for them, how worried they must have been. They had another daughter, Virginia, who died in infancy and now they have a tiny little one who has trouble eating. I have tried to help many parents feed their infants and young children in my work. It is always worrisome and painful for the parents and often causes deep anxiety and fear that can affect their relationship with their baby and with the whole family. The thinking goes, mothers should know how to feed their babies. Babies should eat well and grow chubby.
Her gait is described as unsteady, and she is frequently classified as “crippled”. Yet, she climbs out her cottage window to find her friend when she is moved from Harper Cottage to Dunham.
Defiant, strong-willed, diminutive but strong. I know that kid! I love those kids.
The discrepancy between her test scores and her academic skills is very telling. Rose Ellen achieved a lot at her previous residence, At Molly Woods Hare School, she learned “perfect sewing, reading and writing, and arithmetic”, Yet, once she is tested in Fort Wayne, we see the staff dismiss her abilities, saying she shows “evidence of institutional training”. They have negative expectations for her, which is never good.
One psychologist said, “She has been in a very expensive private school for some 10 years; hence her responses are those of intensive training no doubt rather than those of her true ability” (Fort Wayne Hospital, 2023).