Like They’re Reaching Out to Me

Summary

Under Yazoo Clay: Episode Summary – "Like They’re Reaching Out to Me"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Under Yazoo Clay
• Host/Author: iHeartPodcasts and Mississippi Museum of Art
• Description: Under Yazoo Clay delves into the generations of family secrets surrounding Mississippi’s former “lunatic asylum.” In 2012, human remains were discovered at the site of the state’s university hospital in Jackson, Mississippi, revealing over 7,000 patients who died at the old asylum and were buried on its grounds. Reporter Larrison Campbell explores the stories of families seeking answers about their ancestors and investigates how this significant chapter of history became obscured.

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Introduction

In the episode titled "Like They’re Reaching Out to Me," Under Yazoo Clay focuses on the enigmatic discovery of unmarked graves at the old Mississippi State Asylum and follows the journey of Wayne Lee, a grave douser, as he seeks closure for his family's past.

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Discovery of Unmarked Graves

The episode opens with a vivid description of the asylum cemetery's history and its fading presence in the landscape of Jackson, Mississippi. Reporter Larrison Campbell paints a picture of the cemetery overgrown with vegetation and engulfed by time:

Larrison Campbell [05:58]: "And here there are the thousands of unmarked graves... The cemetery had been swallowed by the woods from Welty's photograph, and Jackson residents began to find other uses for it."

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Wayne Lee: The Grave Douser

Central to the episode is Wayne Lee, a native of North Carolina in his early 70s, who believes he can locate unmarked graves using divining rods. His deep personal connection stems from his own family's history with the asylum—his grandfather was one of the patients who died there.

Wayne Lee [04:30]: "I'm Wayne Lee. I'm a douser."

Wayne uses two thin metal rods, known as divining rods, to detect the presence of graves. His practice is rooted in faith, believing that his ability is a divine gift:

Wayne Lee [16:52]: "It has strengthened my faith. It has told me that just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it's not real."

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The Asylum Hill Project

The University of Mississippi Medical Center initiated the Asylum Hill Project, an archaeological excavation aimed at uncovering the history of the asylum and reconnecting with the descendants of former patients. Dr. Ralph Didlake explains the project's mission:

Dr. Ralph Didlake [35:48]: "We have, in a way, inherited these patients and we want to care for them in the very best way we can."

The project faces significant challenges, including ethical considerations and legal barriers like HIPAA, which restrict access to medical records of deceased patients.

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Revealing Wayne’s Grandfather’s Story

Wayne's quest for answers about his grandfather led him to obtain medical records that had been inaccessible for decades. These records revealed that his grandfather died of pellagra, a nutrient deficiency, rather than mental illness—a revelation that provided much-needed closure:

Wayne Lee [48:47]: "He did not have mental illness in the family. So, you know, there's some closure with that."

This discovery aligns with family narratives that previously dismissed his grandfather's institutionalization as a result of poverty and malnutrition rather than mental instability.

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The Role of Pellagra

Pellagra plays a crucial role in understanding the conditions that led to the high mortality rate at the asylum. The disease, characterized by severe malnutrition, was a common but often misunderstood ailment in rural Mississippi during the early 20th century. The records Wayne accessed clarified that many patients, including his grandfather, suffered from pellagra, which was mistakenly attributed to mental illness at the time.

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Wayne’s Personal Struggles with Mental Illness

Wayne's personal life has been deeply affected by mental illness. His youngest son, diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, faced numerous challenges, including homelessness and incarceration. Wayne's experiences have shaped his empathy and dedication to finding and honoring those buried in the asylum cemetery:

Wayne Lee [50:57]: "Mental illness is a tough thing, but I always knew we had been hearing that pellagra was involved in it, but I just never got it official until... yeah."

Wayne's journey highlights the intergenerational impact of mental health issues and the stigma associated with them.

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Ethical and Legal Challenges

The Asylum Hill Project grapples with ethical and legal obstacles in unearthing the past. Dr. Didlake emphasizes the importance of ethically handling the records while balancing the family's right to know:

Dr. Ralph Didlake [41:44]: "We want to bring these people who have been in this unmarked cemetery back into the community in some way... we have the ethical standing to do what we're doing."

The stringent HIPAA regulations and the sheer volume of records further complicate the process, leading to delays and frustration among families seeking information.

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Conclusion

"Like They’re Reaching Out to Me" is a poignant exploration of memory, history, and the quest for truth. Through Wayne Lee's dedication and the efforts of the Asylum Hill Project, Under Yazoo Clay sheds light on a forgotten chapter of Mississippi's history, honoring the lives of those who were once hidden and ensuring their stories are remembered.

Wayne’s work underscores the importance of acknowledging the past to heal and move forward, emphasizing that "We all have a creator that's in charge... and there are miracles that happen every day." ([16:52])

The episode concludes by reflecting on the profound connections between the living and the dead, and the enduring significance of remembrance:

Wayne Lee [55:58]: "Person, your relative, and that this was their life, this is when they were born and died, and this is where they live. Showing respect."

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Wayne Lee [04:30]: "I'm Wayne Lee. I'm a douser."
• Wayne Lee [16:52]: "It has strengthened my faith. It has told me that just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it's not real."
• Wayne Lee [48:47]: "He did not have mental illness in the family. So, you know, there's some closure with that."
• Dr. Ralph Didlake [35:48]: "We have, in a way, inherited these patients and we want to care for them in the very best way we can."
• Wayne Lee [50:57]: "Mental illness is a tough thing, but I always knew we had been hearing that pellagra was involved in it, but I just never got it official until... yeah."
• Wayne Lee [55:58]: "Person, your relative, and that this was their life, this is when they were born and died, and this is where they live. Showing respect."

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Final Thoughts

"Like They’re Reaching Out to Me" offers a deeply emotional and investigative look into the legacy of Mississippi’s old asylum. By intertwining personal narratives with historical analysis, Under Yazoo Clay not only honors the forgotten but also prompts listeners to reflect on the broader implications of memory, history, and reconciliation.

Transcript

[Podcast Host]

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[Larison Campbell]

Bunch of roses oh yeah, this kind of looks like wisteria growing up over these two archways. I think that is definitely wisteria. It's morning in late April. My producer Rebecca and I are in an old cemetery in downtown Jackson, Mississippi, with Wayne Lee. Wayne's grandfather was one of the 7,000 former patients buried on the grounds of the Mississippi State Asylum. But his grandfather's not buried here. We're in this particular cemetery for something else. Wayne's a taller guy, early 70s. His full head of snow white hair is a bit windswept as he heads towards us. Each time we meet him, he has on some variation of hiking pants cinched up around a plaid Short sleeve shirt. And there's one other thing we haven't told you about Wayne.

[Wayne Lee]

I'm Wayne Lee. I'm a douser.

[Larison Campbell]

If you, like me, grew up on reruns of Gilligan's Island. Mr. Howe, what do you think of.

[Ryan Seacrest]

My new divining rod?

[Larison Campbell]

Then you might have a vague idea of what dowsing is. It's an ancient tradition where practitioners use a forked branch or metal rods to find things hidden underground. Most commonly water underground wells. But people dowse for all sorts of things. Minerals, oil, gemstones and graves. Which is where Wayne comes in. Wayne is a grave douser. This means he believes he's able to find and identify unmarked graves. He takes his direction from two long, thin pieces of metal called divining rods. We'll come back to those later. See, the asylum cemetery and its thousands of unmarked graves was a big story. But the issue of unmarked graves and forgotten cemeteries is. Isn't a new one. In the south, the landscape is peppered with the graves of soldiers from both sides of the Civil War, hastily buried at the sites of major battles. And of course, there were millions of people in slavery on plantations, buried by enslavers who weren't eager to spend money on something as permanent or respectful as a granite headstone. But time is the biggest enemy of all grave sites, even the marked ones. People move away. Rain, humidity, and sun wipe out the landscape's memory. Kudzu and BlackBerry vines topple and bury any markers that are left.

[Wayne Lee]

Well, I don't want to see anyone disrespected. I work in a lot of cemeteries cleaning up cemeteries. They're not my relatives. They're just people that have been forgotten. And by using the dividing rods, I can help find people. Sometimes their headstones are just under the surface. I can find them and upright them to show respect to those people. These are just forgotten souls, and I want to do everything I can to try to write that.

[Larison Campbell]

It's like Dr. Didlake said in our first episode, honoring the dead is baked into the southern ethos. So Wayne, he keeps busy, and he doesn't discriminate. He answers the call of Civil War buffs.

[Wayne Lee]

That day, I think, 11 soldiers, and they were in a line just like a trench.

[Larison Campbell]

He works with the descendants of people enslaved by plantation owners in the Confederacy.

[Wayne Lee]

Maybe it's because my ancestors had slaves. I almost felt like they're reaching out to me. Hey, you know, help us out. I made crosses for every person that I found in that cemetery and marked it and had the names inscribed and the dates they were born and died. And my hope is that someday, when somebody's trying to find their ancestors that was a slave might run across that. That's my hope. I'm just showing respect. Respect.

[Larison Campbell]

Wayne's own grandfather was a patient at the state asylum, which means that his body lies right now in an unmarked grave. His burial nearly 100 years ago might sound like distant past, but for wayne, that lack of resolution in his grandfather's story remains an open wound, and he's looking for a sense of closure.

[Wayne Lee]

I can walk around the room and say, father, can you direct me to larison? Father, please direct me to larison. Father, please direct me to larrison.

[Larison Campbell]

I'm larison Campbell, and this is under yazoo clay, the site of the old asylum. The site that's now the medical center for the university of Mississippi holds 6,7000 unmarked graves. That's 7,000 lives lived and tens of thousands more lives connected to those. So how did this cemetery get forgotten? The first bodies were buried at that site in the middle of the 1800s. And for the next half century plus, the story of this graveyard proceeded in a straight line. Patients were interred, Markers were laid, some some stone, mostly wood. And the cemetery grew, Often tended to and maintained by people in the asylum. So when the asylum closed in 1935 and the state transferred those patients to the new hospital outside of Jackson, the trajectory shifted. Now, the cemetery didn't belong to the hospital. There was no hospital there. It became part of the fabric of Jackson. The best glimpse I've gotten of the asylum in those years was from the writer Eudora welty, who was also a great photographer. In the foreground of her photo is waist high grass. Behind that, a thick jumble of tall trees. And right in the center, peeking through a gap in the branches, looms the decaying turret of the old asylum. Isolated, haunting, beautiful. The state tore down what remained of the building in the 1950s. By then, the cemetery had been swallowed by the woods from welty's photograph, and Jackson residents began to find other uses for it.

[Bill Lee]

And, you know, for a long time, people in the community knew that there was a cemetery there. You know, it comes up again and again When I talk to people who live in this area. They're like, oh, yeah, when I was a teenager, I rode horses there. Or it apparently used to be the place where people would go parking.

[Larison Campbell]

For those of you who've never been to a sock hop, that's 60s speak for a makeout session in a car. And that wasn't the only thing people got up to in the woods.

[Bill Lee]

I know that there was a moonshine operation that got busted back in there at one point. There were reports of a lot of vandalism. You know, just people hanging out, doing stuff they shouldn't do.

[Larison Campbell]

The woods were home to plenty of G rated activities, too. Kids would explore. Adults would take long walks under the trees. One of those is Bill Lee. He's a cousin of Wayne's, the descendant and grave douser. Bill's lived in the Jackson area for over 60 years, and he's a history buff, the way that a lot of older Southern men are.

[Historical Tour Guide]

Well, I lead tours in Normandy.

[Larison Campbell]

Oh, really?

[Historical Tour Guide]

Yeah, I got a touring company. I am pleased that your children are interested in World War II.

[Larison Campbell]

They are very interested in World War II.

[Historical Tour Guide]

Well, that's fantastic.

[Larison Campbell]

Bill lives in a lakeside condo outside of Jackson. We'd gone to his place to meet up with Wayne, who'd driven down from North Carolina. But it turned out that Bill also had something relevant to this story. It sits by his front steps, right where other condo owners would place a stone pelican or hang an anchor. A headstone, white marble, maybe 18 inches high, a foot or so across, an inch thick, propped up right by the front door. The story for how he got it starts more than half a century ago on a walk through those woods with his young son.

[Historical Tour Guide]

We just go walking in the woods and we parked somewhere around there, and I thought it was just a forest, just a wooded area over there. He was so small, he couldn't walk. I had to put him up on my neck. We just started walking, and all of a sudden I looked down and there was a headstone. I said, wait a minute, what is this? And all of a sudden, I walked a little bit further and I started looking all around, and there were scores of. Of headstones over a sprawling area. I said, this is a big cemetery.

[Larison Campbell]

Now. These stone markers weren't on every grave. Most patients were buried with painted wooden markers. Families with means could pay extra for stone.

[Historical Tour Guide]

It was like a forest. And there was not a lot of underbrush because those tree canopies kept that sunlight from the ground. I could see the whole cemetery, See all those markers out there, Scores of them. Well, what they say, 7,000 bodies out there or more.

[Larison Campbell]

Being a history buff, the image of this cemetery stayed with Bill. It felt wrong that in the space of just over 30 years, all these graves in the center of his city could just be forgotten. Especially after he heard that the state had plans to remove the Remaining stone markers. By the way, I haven't been able to find any record of this plan in the state archives or newspapers, but other people have told me they heard about it, too, and the headstones have been gone for decades. So Bill and a friend staged a rescue.

[Historical Tour Guide]

I said, I want to be able to tell people, yes, that's a cemetery out there, and yes, there were markers. And here's the evidence of it right here. Because I knew that first of all, I said, I can't take them all. If I could, I would have taken them all, okay? But I said, I can take one. I can do that. So this is the one I'm going to take right here. And I just wanted to save it for posterity to say, yeah, hey, you say there's no cemetery. There were no markers. Well, here's one right here. I got evidence of it, for goodness sake.

[Larison Campbell]

That evidence has followed Bill to every house he's lived in since. When we paid Bill a visit at his condo, it was the first thing Wayne pointed out.

[Wayne Lee]

This is the first evidence I was telling you about.

[Larison Campbell]

Oh, my gosh, that is not so.

[Wayne Lee]

Can you imagine the first time I met Billy and I come to his house and I said, what are you doing with the headstone?

[Larison Campbell]

Will you read the headstone to me?

[Wayne Lee]

This is Timothy O'Reardon, died May 30, 1893, age 63 years. And Lyda, she checked it out, and he was a patient there, and he was buried in the cemetery.

[Larison Campbell]

And it's in fairly good shape.

[Wayne Lee]

It is sitting there for. Since. In the 70s.

[Larison Campbell]

I mean, that's. I mean, it's been out there since 1893, I reckon.

[Wayne Lee]

Right?

[Larison Campbell]

Yeah. Sitting here 130 years old. To Bill, this was a rescue mission to protect his state's history, Even if the state itself might not see it that way. It's unclear why the headstones would be moved. Institutional memory on this is surprisingly short in a state that still celebrates Confederate History Month. I did hear some markers had been broken and there were concerns about vandalism. Regardless of the reason, the result's the same. The headstones are gone, the wooden markers went the way of the Yazoo clay, and the memories were buried with them. The morning after we saw the headstone at Bill Lee's condo, we headed over to Greenwood Cemetery to meet up with Wayne for a dowsing demonstration. The cemetery sits in the middle of downtown Jackson, a small sea of tall, waving grass and old shade trees in view of the state capitol. We waited for Wayne under a live Oak. The sun was dappled. The birds were loud. The mowers were in full swing. So you may hear one or two of those. Once Wayne pulled up in his bright blue Prius, it was down to business. Do you have a way you like to get started, or.

[Wayne Lee]

Yeah, and I'm gonna do a little demonstration with the divining rods.

[Larison Campbell]

Wayne's dowsing materials consist of two thin steel rods bent into an L shape. The short end's got a piece of PVC pipe around it. That's the part he's holding. The PVC means he's not touching the metal, that it can move free and clear.

[Wayne Lee]

And I like this to be able to move freely. That way, you know, he can spin all the way around. I'm not touching the metal at all. And so I don't want anybody thinking, yeah, he's making that turn. I can't make it turn.

[Larison Campbell]

When he locates a grave, the two rods swing toward his chest and cross over each other. When he steps off the grave, the rods swing back out. It's a dynamic X marks the spot kind of operation. If you're wondering just what the hell kind of metal can do this, the answer is any.

[Wayne Lee]

You could take a coat hanger. You can be done with aluminum. It can be done with copper. This is just metal that came from, like, Home Depot or Lowe's.

[Larison Campbell]

The rods may not need to be endowed with specific qualities, but the dowser does. Wang calls this a gift granted by his creator. It's one he said became apparent the first time he picked up divining rods, which surprised even him. Real dousers, he explains, are rare.

[Wayne Lee]

It was very scary for me. I stopped. I looked around. I'm like, am I going nuts? Nobody wants to think about that. But the thing that has happened for me by using the divining rods, it has strengthened my faith. It has told me that just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it's not real. And there's so much in this world I think that we don't. We don't know, we don't know about. It's told me that we all have a creator. No matter what you want to call your creator or you want to call it God or Buddha or whatever, we have a creator that's in charge. And there are miracles that happen every day just because we don't always know it. I've had several miracles happen in my life, this being one of them, that I've gained this ability to do this.

[Larison Campbell]

When Wayne tells us that he's one of the few who can do this. I'm a little skeptical, but Wayne is so sweet and earnest that it doesn't feel like he's trying to pull one over on us. I mean, he offered to demonstrate.

[Wayne Lee]

So we're going to walk over to this first series of graves.

[Larison Campbell]

Here he traipse through the overgrown grass to a line of headstones. Then, holding a bent metal rod in each hand, he bowed his head.

[Wayne Lee]

First of all, I'm just gonna ask God to help me use these divining rods today. Please let your holy spirit work through me and let me do a good job with this today. So when I step over a grave, the rods will cross over. When I step off, the rods will open up.

[Larison Campbell]

Oh, he steps over the graves and the rods make an X. But it's not just the locations of graves.

[Wayne Lee]

I was told by a douser a few years ago when I first started dousing that he could determine the depth that the person was buried. I've never dug anyone up, so I don't know that to be a fact. So first I'm walk to the grave, crosses over. I wait for it to reopen. When they cross over again is how deep the person is. So the distance from here to there, which is probably around 6ft, they can.

[Larison Campbell]

Point to the head of the body.

[Wayne Lee]

Father, can you direct me to the head of this person? Father, can you direct me to the feet of this person?

[Larison Campbell]

They can deduce gender.

[Wayne Lee]

I place one rod over her. If it's a woman, the rod would turn toward her feet. If it's a man, the rod would turn toward the head.

[Larison Campbell]

And in one of the more awe inspiring feats, they can even lead Wayne to a specific person.

[Wayne Lee]

Let's ask for Mary Louise. Father, I'm looking for Mary Louise. Can you help me find Mary Louise? And it's not going to cross over again until I get to Mary Louise. Mary Louise. But I have the confidence and God has revealed to me that I can find people. I don't even know who they are.

[Larison Campbell]

Skepticism aside, it's easy to see how the ability to not just locate, but identify graves could be useful. Especially when you have something like a state owned site with 7,000 unmarked graves. In fact, Wayne has doused at the asylum cemetery and he believes he's located his own grandfather's grave.

[Wayne Lee]

When I found my grandfather there at the cemetery and they hadn't started exhuming bodies yet, that was the beginning of some closure for me. It's like maybe you forgot about him and maybe you didn't put up a marker. That's still there, but I'm going to put up a marker.

[Larison Campbell]

As I said, the science here is iffy at best, and that's at odds with the very science based identification approach of Asylum Hill and the University Medical Center. Which is probably why when the medical center found out that we and Wayne and a bunch of audio equipment were heading out to the Asylum cemetery to record Wayne Dowsing for his grandfather's grave, they politely but firmly told us to leave. Are you trying to take pictures or something? No, no, no, no, no, no. He wanted to show us where he believes his grandfather's grave is. Oh, well, yeah, I'm sorry, but can he just not talk about it and not, like, physically go there? Which is how we all wound up at the very marked graves of Greenwood Cemetery. But there is an upside to dowsing at a cemetery where graves are marked. There might be confirmation bias, but it's easy to see if it's working. So I asked if I could give it a shot. Does this work for everybody?

[Wayne Lee]

Can anybody do this? I've shown several people some people can do it, some people can do it a little bit. Some people can't do it at all.

[Larison Campbell]

May I try?

[Wayne Lee]

Sure.

[Larison Campbell]

Actually, it turned out I was one of the people in that latter category. That's after the break.

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[Wayne Lee]

And back up and go. Come forward again. Hold them just a little more level.

[Larison Campbell]

A little more level.

[Wayne Lee]

Fairly bent. So it's not.

[Larison Campbell]

The rods barely moved. Maybe this just meant I hadn't mastered the wrist tilt. I tried adjusting my hands. I don't think I have this.

[Wayne Lee]

Well, you know what? Like I said, this is between me and God. And I said, God, you know, help me. I always pray before I do it.

[Larison Campbell]

All right, I'm gonna have a meditative moment.

[Wayne Lee]

God, help me.

[Larison Campbell]

And I'm gonna try it again.

[Wayne Lee]

Sure.

[Larison Campbell]

I tried again. I don't think I have. Oh, okay. All right, guys. The rods moved slightly toward each other. Over your hand, or. Yeah, you're kind of alive, according to those. Halfway there.

[Wayne Lee]

Maybe I'm the problem. Maybe it's not you, it's me. All right, let's try it over a headstand.

[Larison Campbell]

Maybe that was something. Or maybe it was just that they were sitting inside hollow PVC tubes. Alas, no dice. If this was some sort of gimmick that Wayne was pulling off, it was an impressive one. Rebecca, the producer, seemed to share my doubt, which may be why I handed her the rods. Next. Do you want to give it a try? Would that be all right? Yeah, I'll just hand you all of this stuff. Yeah, hand me all this stuff and the headphones.

[Wayne Lee]

Now come toward me and get straightened up with me. Now walk toward me.

[Larison Campbell]

Oh, all right.

[Wayne Lee]

I told You. I was alive.

[Larison Campbell]

Well, should I try asking a question?

[Wayne Lee]

You can ask where the person's head is, but like I said, I pray and I ask God to help me do this. Can you ask where the. Where the head of Mary Louise? Where's the head of Mary Louise McGehee?

[Larison Campbell]

Inexplicably, the rods swung closed, then open, then around to point the way to Mary Louise McGehee.

[Wayne Lee]

Wow.

[Larison Campbell]

I think you might be a natural.

[Wayne Lee]

You got it? Yeah. You're the first person that I know of that has done this.

[Larison Campbell]

Well, when I'm showing them, no, you're like a natural. Audio as a medium has its limitations. So I'm just going to describe Rebecca's face at this moment. Her eyes are wide. She's blushing a little, like someone who's been caught. Her expression is a mixture of awe and surprise and bewilderment with just a touch of horror. To be honest, neither of us knows what to make of gravedowsing. Is it a warping of energies? A communing with something beyond ourselves? Is it the power of the subconscious? Or maybe a well timed fluke? I can't say. But I'm not sure it matters. Because whether or not this is real, I do believe that there's something mystical about cemeteries. Energy changes places. And is there any type of land that has seen more emotion over the years than a cemetery? For Wayne, all this is driven by faith.

[Wayne Lee]

It's not an exact science. And some people will say, you know, it's not real, or you're making it happen. I'm not. But I can foul it up. You know, it's real and it works, but I can foul it up. I don't do it for money. I just do it to help people. I'm doing it to try to show some respect for those people that are buried out there. Not just my grandfather, but for everyone that's buried out there.

[Larison Campbell]

All this premised on the absolute belief that his God won't lead him astray, that the rods point and cross. True.

[Wayne Lee]

It's like another realm out there. This is just temporary, because I know when this voice told me, do this, do that, you know it's real. But anybody wants to believe it or.

[Larison Campbell]

Not, there's something about a physical site, a place where you can imagine your loved one is present. But finding this place wasn't the end of Wayne's search. Oh, that's nice. It's really beautiful. This must be the reservoir because there's a bunch of boats. That brings us back to cousin Bill's Condo, the same one where we saw that headstone.

[Historical Tour Guide]

Well, listen, welcome to my little adobe.

[Larison Campbell]

Thank you. This is wonderful. Thanks so much for hosting. We sat on two overstuff plaid chairs in Bill's living room, looking out over a marina full of pontoon boats. Wayne so believes in everything that he's doing, not just his dowsing, but understanding his grandfather's story. And he wanted to get it right for us. He laid out a whole spread of newspaper clippings, photos and articles on Bill's white tile counter, most of them in sheet protectors. Perched on a bar stool, he bounced his knee as he talked.

[Wayne Lee]

The only thing I knew was my granddaddy was put in a mental institution and that they said he was crazy. I didn't have all the diagnosis and all that. I didn't know him. But then you wonder, you know, was there a problem? I feel like even though the hospital did all they could to help take care of him, I feel like they did. They should have kept better records. It shouldn't be that. Years go by and people say, well, we didn't even know they were there. We just build over them. You know, it's not important. They're dead. It didn't matter.

[Larison Campbell]

We started out talking about Wayne's grandfather. The little Wayne had been told about him. The family's narrative had always been somewhat simple. Wayne's grandfather wasn't crazy. He was starving. To the modern ear, maybe that sounds like denial, but a century ago, in rural Mississippi, it was real. Historically, there were lots of reasons people were called insane. And the causes of what we consider mental illness weren't all the same as they are now. One of the biggest drivers of patients to the state hospital wasn't even what we'd now consider mental illness. It was malnutrition.

[Wayne Lee]

Well, since he died in 32 and I wasn't born until 52, I didn't know a lot about him. You know, hadn't met him. All that I knew was that, you know, what our mother had told us when she was 18. They were very poor sharecroppers in Mississippi. There were five children. They didn't have any food to eat, and he basically gave them his food. He got really sick. He got very delusional. He had sores on his hands and feet, and they didn't know what was wrong with him. They were so poor, they didn't have a car. They couldn't take him to a hospital. And so the story that we were told was that a neighbor contacted the sheriff and said, you need to take this man to the hospital said he's delusional. He's very paranoid. He thinks someone's coming to get him. So the sheriff came, and my mother was the oldest. She was 18. She signed the paperwork for the sheriff to take him to the mental hospital. According to my mom, they didn't know he was going to a mental hospital. She thought they were just taking him to the hospital. And the story that we always heard was they didn't find out until like, six months later that he had died. Affected her a lot. And it also caused some rifts in the family, from what I understand, because she supposedly signed the paperwork for the sheriff to take her father. The youngest child was 10. And my mom always said that, you know, some of the younger ones held it against her that, you know, she'd send her father off and he'd come back.

[Larison Campbell]

And that was it. The end of his grandfather's life stayed shrouded in mystery. But in the 1970s, Wayne's brother decided his family needed answers.

[Wayne Lee]

My brother, James Lee, we called him Tom. He had polio when he was three. It always made him a little more of a homebody. He had got into studying all of our family history when he was a teenager. He was writing to hospital. I've got a copy of a letter that he sent in 77, which he would have been a teenager then, but not far from it, asking about our grandfather. And he had called down there to the hospital and asked about her father and grandfather. And. And they said, well, we don't know where he is. We can't send you any medical records. It's against the law. And that he might be buried under one of these buildings out here under a street we don't know. And so my brother was pretty persistent about that through the years, and he got me interested probably about 15 years ago. And so my brother passed away two years ago. So I'm trying to kind of carry on what he had started. It was very important, a lot more important to him, all those years that he spent on it, than it was to me. I was just a kid, and I didn't.

[Larison Campbell]

Didn't know at this point, 75 years had passed, and they had nothing to go off of but their mother's teenage memories. Wayne knew the answers about his grandfather existed. They lay in those medical records his brother had tried to get back in the 70s.

[Wayne Lee]

And every step of the way, they were always said, no, no, no, we're not giving out any records knowing the.

[Larison Campbell]

Answers were there, only to have someone say, you can't have them. It ate it, Wayne. But getting them would require wading into an ethical and bureaucratic mess only the Deep south can cook up. This wasn't just some clerk being difficult to understand why Wayne couldn't get those records. We have to talk about how the state views the bodies laid to rest at Asylum Hill. For starters, they don't call them bodies. Here's Dr. Ralph Didlake, the mind behind the Asylum Hill Project.

[Dr. Ralph Didlake]

We have, in a way, inherited these patients and we want to care for them in the very best way we can. We need to set a standard. We need to be an example, and we need to treat these as our patients.

[Larison Campbell]

This perspective, though, complicates things because the medical center can't share patient records without patient consent, which presents a problem in this case because the patients have all passed on.

[Dr. Ralph Didlake]

Even in the pediatric world, parents don't give consent for their children. They give permission for their children. That's the modern bioethics theories at the moment.

[Larison Campbell]

I reported on Mississippi politics for years, so I'm used to state institutions hiding information behind arcane laws and statutes. And I can imagine why they'd want to keep these records hidden. In many cases, they won't paint a rosy picture of life and the state asylum. So I was pretty surprised to find out that the push to unveil these medical records came from a state sponsored institution, the Asylum Hill Project. But if you want to release records first, you've got to find someone to release them to. That means finding next of kin. How exactly do you do that when all the graves are unmarked and the last one was dug more than 80 years ago? That's when we come back. The largest art museum in the state. The Mississippi Museum of Art connects Mississippi to the world and the power of art to the power of community. Located in downtown Jackson, the museum's permanent collection is free to the public. National and international exhibitions rotate throughout the year, allowing visitors to experience works from around the world. The gardens and expansive lawn at the Mississippi Museum of Art are home to art installations and a variety of events for all ages. Plan your Visit [e-mail] that's msmuseumart.org hey.

[Ryan Seacrest]

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[Podcast Host]

At California Psychics, we know some people can't read the career warning signs like your boss. Still not knowing your name.

[Larison Campbell]

You, Tina, Lisa, Sheila, whatever. Get that report to me by lunch, okay? It's Carrie, ma' am. Just get it done, Terry.

[Podcast Host]

So talk to California Psychics and receive the career guidance you you need. We only connect you with the very best. So guarantee if your reading isn't life changing, it's free. California psychics call 1-800-PREDICT today and get 20 minutes for just $20.

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[Larison Campbell]

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[Lowe's Advertiser]

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[Larison Campbell]

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[Dr. Ralph Didlake]

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[Larison Campbell]

We make the complex simple. I can even help schedule a professional measuring install. I didn't realize you did that.

[Dr. Ralph Didlake]

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[Ryan Seacrest]

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[Larison Campbell]

I mean, I always thought I needed a designer to come to my home, but scheduling's always a Nightmare.

[Dr. Ralph Didlake]

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[Larison Campbell]

Hmm. I just might have to do more.

[Dr. Ralph Didlake]

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[Larison Campbell]

How about you tell me what you had in mind? Okay, then. So the first rum looking at is for guests coming over, and I'm thinking of something. Blinds.com has covered over 25 million windows, all backed by a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Shopblinds.com now and save up to 40% site wide. Rules and restrictions may apply.

[Ryan Seacrest]

The University of Mississippi Medical center in.

[Larison Campbell]

Jackson is heading up an archaeological excavation. Excavation as part of a program called.

[Bill Lee]

The Asylum Hill Project.

[Larison Campbell]

And today, representatives from UMC came to the Wayne County Library to invite locals to get involved in that project.

[Dr. Ralph Didlake]

We have spoken at libraries and Rotary clubs and anyone who would stand still and listen all over the state to try to get the message out so they can inform us and we can inform them.

[Larison Campbell]

The Asylum Hill Project basically went on a statewide tour across Mississippi, hell bent on tracking down any descendants they could. If you'd even heard a whisper in your family of someone who'd been sent to the old asylum, they wanted to talk to you.

[Dr. Ralph Didlake]

One, they have the old history of the families. They have the documents, they have the photographs. We would like to archive all of that. They need to sign off on what we are doing. So we have that community engagement piece. We also want to be fully transparent. We don't want anyone in any part of the state to feel that we're up here doing this without informing everyone.

[Larison Campbell]

This is where that southern ethos comes back in that reverence for the grave.

[Dr. Ralph Didlake]

We want this to bring these people who have been in this unmarked cemetery. We want to bring them back into the community in some way. And we think that preserving those stories, if the family desires that, helps us fill in the gaps of the story of the institution and memorializes them in some way, we have the ethical standing to do what we're doing. Have we entered into an ethical standard calculus? Absolutely, because the needs of our future patients are our ethical burden, and we have to weigh that against the interest of the individuals buried there and the descendant community.

[Larison Campbell]

But even after clearing the ethical hurdles, there were still legal issues. If you've ever filled out a form in a doctor's office, you've probably heard of hipaa. It's that law that keeps medical records from being seen by anyone who isn't either the patient or the provider that stays in effect until the patient's been dead for 50 years. And then Mississippi had a second law on the books for mental health records that shielded them, like, until the end of time. Hey, privacy is privacy.

[Bill Lee]

In order to get individual patient records, they have to sign an affidavit and have a witness and all of that. That they are the people who should be getting these records. You know, and that's just something that was. Just worked. I mean, recently, like within the past two months that we've worked out. The center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities does have custody now of many of the old individual patient records. I am very sensitive about those. I try not to gawk. Would I want anybody looking at my mental health records? No. And so I try to be very respectful.

[Larison Campbell]

And then, then there was the logistical quagmire. There are more than 1,000 boxes of records, all jumbled together, no rhyme or reason. Newly rescued from a storage unit. The only way to parse through them all is to parse through them all, box by box, page by page. And not just anybody can do it. Remember our old friend hepa Some of the patients whose records are in those boxes could have died in the last 50 years. So in order to look through any of these records, you've got to have special HIPAA training. So for many of the families of these former patients, the suspense will be building for a while.

[Bill Lee]

You know, I'm very sensitive about, like, who gets to see those. But they're all together. They're not separated by years. I think I estimated that it would take five years, given our current staffing, to just get everything indexed and separated.

[Larison Campbell]

Wayne, though, is one of the lucky ones.

[Wayne Lee]

And so finally a month ago, I get a copy of those medical records.

[Larison Campbell]

So I'm getting closure in terms of length. His grandfather's file fell somewhere in the middle. 62 pages. He'd laid them all out for us to see on his cousin Bill's kitchen counter. What is legible in them? Is there anything that you think is like, worth sharing with us?

[Wayne Lee]

I share it all with you. What's legible? And some of it wasn't legible until I went through and connected the dots.

[Larison Campbell]

These were files from the 1930s. The originals were handwritten by nurses and doctors and nurses and doctors in a hurry. Add on to that the fact that they were digitized in the earliest days of scanning technology and you realize Wayne wasn't speaking figuratively when he said connect the dots. Wayne painstakingly went through the records, cross referencing with Lyda to figure out medical terms from the era.

[Wayne Lee]

And one of the things that is said there at the end of a couple of the reports, like where the nurse said, you know, he had a good day or he had a bad day or whatever, a couple of times they said acted stupid today. It was a clinical term that he just didn't act normal today. Most of the days they said he was. Well, they said from the beginning that he causing problems. He was very paranoid. He wouldn't get out or he couldn't get out of the bed. And it says large stool. Yes, that kind of thing. Small stool. Visually bad day, restless. Then you get to here, 13 bath given, back, dressed, sleeping, very restless. Not sure what that is. Expired, had a half a glass of milk. Expired at 1:30 on the 3rd.

[Larison Campbell]

A man's death noted in the same breath as his sleeping habits. But in spite of the faint writing, the outdated vocabulary, all the things that made these records almost indecipherable, Wayne still got the answer that he needed the most. One, it turns out the state had tried to give Wayne's brother back in the 70s.

[Wayne Lee]

This is from the hospital to my brother, James T. Lee. Dear Mr. Lee, the medical Record Department has received your letter concerning John Benedict Whitfield. We regret. Regret that we will not be able to provide a copy of your grandfather's hospital record. Estate Statute 412197 prohibits release of medical records. However, we can understand your family's concern with the circumstances of your grandfather's death. The cause of death was pellagra, which is a clinical deficiency syndrome and, of course, is not an inherited disease. It may be helpful for you to know that the record indicates that J.B. whitfield's father, Joseph Whitfield, died at the age of 90 of old age. It is also stated that there was no history of mental illness in the family. We hope the information would be meaningful to you and your family. Sincerely, Faye Thomas, Medical Record Department.

[Larison Campbell]

Cause of death, pellagra. Like Faye's letter mentioned, it was a nutrient deficiency, not a mental illness. We'll come back to pellagra later on. It plays a large role in the old asylum story. As for Wayne, a pellagra diagnosis was sweet, sweet relief.

[Wayne Lee]

See, I grew up with a little bit of the stigma of, they thought your grandfather was crazy. They put him in an insane asylum. You know, was he. Was he not. Our mom said he wasn't crazy. He was just starving. And so it was great to get them medical records a month ago, which clearly says he has plegria. He had symptoms of that that caused these effects. There was no mental illness in the family. And so, you know, there's some closure with that.

[Larison Campbell]

You sound relieved almost, that he was in there for pellagra, not for.

[Wayne Lee]

Definitely something else.

[Larison Campbell]

What. What's that about?

[Wayne Lee]

Okay.

[Larison Campbell]

Wayne had driven about 12 hours straight from Durham, North Carolina, to Jackson, Mississippi, just to speak with us. He wanted to make sure his grandfather's story got told. But then Wayne told us his.

[Wayne Lee]

I always knew that my youngest son had some issues. He was a really sweet kid, good kid, but always had a fear that maybe he had inherited something from his mom. He was a teenager. He started developing mental illness and became homeless when he was, like, 17, 18. Lived on the street, off and on. My first wife had mental problems. Her mother had mental problems. Her grandmother had mental problems. And one time she kind of threw it up to me. Well, your grandfather had no problems, like.

[Larison Campbell]

So, anyway, Wayne and his first wife had children together, two boys. When those boys were 13 and 9 years old, Wayne got full custody. It was the end of a rough, brutal divorce.

[Wayne Lee]

I knew that she definitely had the mental illness because she would make up all this stuff in her mind, she would believe it. But anyway, I've had to deal with some mental illness.

[Larison Campbell]

Things settled down for a while after that. But once Wayne's youngest hit his late teenage years, things took a turn.

[Wayne Lee]

He robbed a bank when he was 19. So he walked in the bank, handed him a note, said, I need $85,000. And they laughed and said, yeah, me too. He said, no, I think you might have misunderstood me. I need $85,000. This is a hold up and I have a weapon. Well, he didn't. But anyway, they gave him the money. He went to prison for three and a half years. It was a terrible experience.

[Larison Campbell]

When his son got out, he emerged with a diagnosis, paranoid schizophrenia. Wayne learned that his son had been hearing voices since his 20s.

[Wayne Lee]

If somebody walked in a room, a lot of times he'd just start laughing. I couldn't figure out what he was laughing about. And I said, what are you laughing about? Oh, nothing. It would just be uncontrollable. And then in time, one day it finally came out that, like if a woman walked in a room, he said the voice would say, boy, she has big. And so then it made sense that every time we went somewhere in public, somebody comes walking up, he'd just look, he'd laugh and he'd put his head down, and sometimes he'd just have to walk out of the room, but he was hearing voices.

[Larison Campbell]

The time Wayne's son spent in prison did nothing to help his mental illness.

[Wayne Lee]

Prisons are basically to punish. And so he got out. I got him section 8 housing and got him more jobs, but nothing ever lasted, you know, got him medical care. But you can't make somebody take the medication if they have mental problems. You know, hopefully you can help them, but you can't make them.

[Larison Campbell]

Wayne's son went in and out of prison, off then back onto the street. This went on for more than a decade. At the end of it, Wayne's son was killed by another man near his age, also suffering from mental illness.

[Wayne Lee]

And when he died, you know, that night, it was terrible. And I was praying about it and I couldn't sleep. And I said, God, I said, don't let me go to the dark side. Don't let me be better. Help me through this. And I had, I got through it. I had no remorse toward that family, toward the man that did it. I feel sorry for him and his family because it could have been my son that could have been the other way around. And so that's how I have that's why, I guess I have certain feelings about mental illness, is because I've lived through it with people, never in my family other than my son, but with my ex wife and her family. Mental illness is a tough thing, but I always knew, you know, we had been hearing that Pellagra was involved in it, but I just never got it official until, you know, reading all these medical records and just from the research that I had done on Pellagra, you know, it said it causes these problems and. Yeah, and whether he was or he wasn't, I've never looked at it like, well, that's not a reflection on me. But like you said, it could be traced or passed down.

[Larison Campbell]

So when you said that your ex wife used to say, well, you know, you have this in your family. Was it in the context of your son that she would say that or.

[Wayne Lee]

Yeah, and it's like, yeah, but anyway, that's the past.

[Larison Campbell]

That's the past. The past that can be left in the ground or brought back to life, that can bring pain or bring comfort or a mix of both. Wayne's closure doesn't just lie in the diagnosis and how that connects to present and future generations of Wayne's family. It lies in those brief moments and notes the nurses outlined in knowing that the asylum staff, even with their limited resources, had tried to help his grandfather. It showed that this man hadn't been locked away and forgotten. I mean, what does it mean to have, like, for somebody who has died? What does it mean for them to have a memorial just acknowledging that that.

[Wayne Lee]

Person, your relative, and that this was their life, this is when they were born and died, and this is where they live. Showing respect.

[Larison Campbell]

What is the value, if you have died, of being acknowledged by the living?

[Wayne Lee]

I don't think he's doing anything for the deceased. Maybe it is.

[Podcast Host]

I don't know.

[Historical Tour Guide]

Oh, well, it's like Eva Peron, when she was dying, they said, what's your greatest wish? And she said, I want to be remembered. I want to be remembered. That's the reason I'm putting a stone over in this cemetery over here. That it is. We all want to be remembered, for goodness sake.

[Wayne Lee]

And I thought, you know, this is a man I never met. You know, I'm not sure about the afterlife, and I'm not sure if he's up in heaven. He's cheering me on. But in the last couple days, I was thinking, you know, maybe he's just there saying, hey, you guys, this is my grandson. He's trying to tell the world that we're here and where I am, and I and I love him for that. That.

[Larison Campbell]

As Southerners, we're predisposed to make meaning from our histories, probably more than we should. Our region's unwillingness to move on, our tendency to continually valorize the past, is often our Achilles heel. But on a small scale, like one cemetery and its keepers, maybe holding the past close can help you move on. Wherever you believe people go, when they're gone, whatever you believe should be done with their remains. What better memorial than to tell their stories, to remember their lives?

[Bill Lee]

So initially, of course, what brought about this project was the need for UMMC to reclaim the land. But it has turned into more of a commitment, I think, to tell these stories, to tell the stories of the descendants. And a lot of people say that we're trying to give voice to the patients. Giving voice seems too pushy to me. I think if we are quiet enough and we learn enough about what was going on, we can hear their voices. We don't need to give them voice. The voices are there, the voices are.

[Larison Campbell]

There, and sometimes the story they tell, it's not the one you thought you were going to hear. That's next on Under Yazoo Clay.

[Wayne Lee]

I mean, my suspicion there is the silence is the response to the shame.

[Larison Campbell]

And it gets buried down so deep that any kind of scratch of the surface bubbles up, this uncontrollable emotional response that then has to be tamped down quick. Under Yazoo Clay is executive produced by the Mississippi Museum of Art in partnership with Pod People. It's hosted by me, Larison Campbell, and written and produced by Rebecca Chassan and myself, with help from Angela Yee and Amy Machado, with editing and sound design by Morgan Foose and Erica Wong. And thanks to Blue Dot Sessions for music. Special thanks to Betsy Bradley at the Mississippi Museum of Art, as well as Lyda Gibson at the center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Visit Jackson and Jayandini Stein.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway this spring. Take care of your entire home, including the air you breathe, and save $5 when you buy $25 worth of participating products in store or online shop. For items like Glade Plugins, Airwick Plug Ins, Glade Auto Sprays, Airwick Diffusers and Glade refills. And save $5 when you spend $25 on participating products. Offer ends May 20th. Restrictions apply. Promotions may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details at.

[Podcast Host]

California Psychics we know some people can't read the career warning signs like your boss. Still not knowing your name.

[Larison Campbell]

You, Tina, Lisa, Sheila, whatever. Get that report to me by lunch, okay? It's Carrie, ma' am. Just get it done.

[Podcast Host]

Terry so talk to California psychics and receive the career guidance you need. We only connect you with the very best, so guarantee if your reading isn't life changing, it's free. California psychics. Call 1-800-PREDICTIONS today and get 20 minutes for just $20.

[Larison Campbell]

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