“Where
Cross the Crowded Ways of Life” In two
past blog entries I explain how I knew my father was in the army and that he
had been the pharmacist at Northern State Hospital. In Northern State Hospital’s newsletter,
columnist Janet Forza includes a shared moment with the “postal representative”
in a piece published May 1940. A swarm of bees has arrived at the front lawn.
It was psychiatric
hospital. Some of the patients were drug
addicts. The United State Post Office
truck unloaded where the pharmacist sorted the mail. The
hospital relied on the pharmacist to watch for possible contraband and to analyze any unknown
substance at the pharmacy laboratory. The
pharmacist received packages that supplied orders for drugs and necessities. The
pharmacist photographed patients when they entered. He developed some photographs.
The
postal representative rushed out with camera in hand and by sheer brute force
wedged his way into the midst of the melee and snapped one-two pictures – then
– was seen no more. The column by Janet Forza is titled,
“Behold, the Conquering Hero Comes” and is about nature and man. The column is an extended metaphor which
references ideas in people’s thoughts and conversations in May, 1940, the ideas
included war and even concentration camps.
Below the whole column appears a comment of praise: “The Men’s O.T. has done a classy job of
binding Goethe’s Works for Library.” – the comment of praise for Occupational
Therapy is filler, yet newsworthy. From time to time in the newsletter occurs a comment appears about columns by Janet Forza. People liked her columns. I can include the 1940 article in full.
It was
at Tacoma Public Library that I awaited, with others, the 1940 United States
Census in 2012. I found Theodore Jensen listed
as pharmacist. I had glimpsed the 1930
census of Northern State Hospital to determine that among employees at the
hospital were names of English Descent, among patients were a larger
representation of names that were non-English.
Recently,
when Tacoma Public Library had logged me in to Ancestry, I found a physician
listed at Northern State Hospital listed as private or unknown at a family
tree. The assignment of privacy or unknown
requires a respectful distance, although I have no way of knowing about the
physician’s distant family member who created their tree. The tree includes a beautiful professional
photo, others with the wife of the physician as a young girl. The private or unknown designation can be about
stigma, about the wide category of difficulty associated with the institutions.
Janet
Forza’s first home address exists along a maze of old two-story row houses,
where at places there are churches or public buildings, on Google Earth Street
views. She was born Janet Allsopp, and
is 2 years old, in Derby, in a United Kingdom 1920 Census. Derby, it seems, is close to the middle of England. Her mother, a widow in the United States,
married Joseph Forza, who was born in Austria.
Janet Forza is in the 1940 United States Census as 22 years old and
working at Northern State Hospital as a stenographer. At Ancestry at Tacoma Public Library, I find
Janet Forza is included in family trees.
Janet Forza is buried in a Sedro-Wooley Cemetery, on Find a Grave, not
the hospital cemetery.
Regarding
the appearance of Theodore Jensen, there to photograph this event so
momentarily: I can also include one
photograph of hospital days saved among his other photographs. it is a
photograph of a work crew I think putting down tar on the road at the hospital,
this is work therapy, another occurrence during a hospital day. It is unusual for there to be among my father’s
photographs a Northern State Hospital Photograph. Where Cross the Crowded Ways of Life.
