Threads

Summary

Under Yazoo Clay: Episode "Threads" Summary

Podcast Information:

• Title: Under Yazoo Clay
• Host/Author: iHeartPodcasts and Mississippi Museum of Art
• Episode: Threads
• Release Date: April 3, 2025

---

1. Introduction

"Under Yazoo Clay" delves into the hidden history of Mississippi’s former lunatic asylum, uncovering generations of family secrets and forgotten narratives. In the episode titled "Threads," host Bill Lee explores the intricate connections between past and present, focusing on personal stories and community-driven projects aimed at preserving the memories of those who once inhabited the asylum grounds.

---

2. History of the Yazoo Clay Asylum

The episode begins by recounting the 2012 discovery of over 7,000 patient remains at the site of Mississippi’s old asylum, later associated with Yazoo Clay. These individuals had been buried on the asylum’s grounds, their existence largely forgotten until the construction crew’s unsettling find. As Jackson, Mississippi, expanded around the asylum, the facility became neglected, and its history faded from public consciousness.

Notable Quote:

"Over the course of the old asylum's life, it grew. Jackson grew around it. Its story unspooled threads joining the tapestry of ever expanding daily life in central Mississippi."
– Bill Lee [04:34]

---

3. Discovery and Rediscovery of Asylum Hill Cemetery

Donna Brown and Kathy Denton from the state hospital museum reveal the rich history preserved through photographs and memorabilia. They share anecdotes about the community's interactions with the asylum, such as Sunday picnics where locals would watch patients from the front lawn. The closure of the asylum in the 1950s led to a period of muted stories until the rediscovery of the Asylum Hill Cemetery reignited interest and lore surrounding the facility.

Notable Quote:

"The rediscovery of the asylum hill cemetery, the lore is also coming back to life."
– Bill Lee [03:40]

---

4. Personal Stories: Kimberly Jackson and Her Ancestors

A central narrative in this episode is Kimberly Jackson’s quest to uncover her family’s connection to the asylum. Kimberly shares the poignant story of her great-grandmother, Zinni, who was admitted to Asylum Hill after a severe mental health decline following her mother's death. Despite the family's openness about Zinni's time at the asylum, records were scarce, leaving generations without closure.

Notable Quotes:

"Finding Zenith, it fills me to finally know that there was an end to her story."
– Kimberly Jackson [25:03]

"Her husband remained devoted. He went back three times to visit her, but never could bring her back."
– Bill Lee [13:30]

---

5. The Asylum Hill Project: Connecting Past and Present

The Asylum Hill Project, spearheaded by Lyda Gibson and Dr. Didlake, aims to connect descendants with information about their ancestors buried at the asylum site. The project involves sorting archived patient records and conducting exhumations to respectfully handle the remains. Dr. Didlake emphasizes the importance of respect and acknowledgment for the patients, stating, "The first and foremost duty of care owed to these patients is just respect." [29:13]

Notable Quote:

"The Asylum Hill Project isn't just about connecting descendants with information about their loved ones. It's about that land."
– Bill Lee [28:22]

---

6. The Loom Initiative: Weaving Memory and Data

A unique aspect of the project is the collaborative loom installation at the Mississippi Museum of Art, created by archaeological field tech Emily Wicke and contributed to by community members like Paige Sorbo. The loom serves as a metaphor for interweaving personal stories with historical data. Vertical threads represent factual information about the asylum's patients—such as race and gender—while horizontal threads allow visitors to add their personal touches, symbolizing the blending of past and present.

Notable Quote:

"The community represented in that pattern isn't just the living, the people who can get to the museum and add their personal touch to this cloth. It's also every patient who passed through the doors of the old asylum."
– Bill Lee [43:04]

---

7. Challenges and Future Plans of the Project

The Asylum Hill Project faces significant challenges, including extensive record sorting, exhumation processes, and the logistical complexities of handling thousands of remains. Lyda Gibson mentions, "I think I estimated that it would take five years, given our current staffing, to just get everything indexed and separated." [28:57]

Dr. Didlake outlines future plans, such as building a memorial on campus and constructing a standalone mausoleum to house the remains above ground. This approach aims to preserve the memory of the patients while facilitating future identification and respectful handling of the remains.

Notable Quote:

"We're going to build a memorial on campus and not reinter these individuals. That is administratively much more efficient."
– Dr. Didlake [30:37]

---

8. Reflection on Community and Memory

The episode culminates in reflections on the emotional and communal impact of uncovering and preserving this history. Kimberly Jackson expresses a profound sense of completion upon discovering her great-grandmother’s burial site, highlighting the personal significance of reconnecting with her lineage. The collective efforts of the Asylum Hill Project members and community descendants emphasize the broader importance of remembering and honoring forgotten histories.

Notable Quotes:

"For lack of a better word, completeness."
– Kimberly Jackson [25:03]

"The story of Asylum Hill is unexpected. A crew of scientists, historians, artists, school counselors, professors, and grave doulers, all digging deeper in search of understanding."
– Bill Lee [36:50]

---

Conclusion

"Threads" weaves together personal narratives, historical research, and community engagement to shed light on a hidden chapter of Mississippi’s past. Through the Asylum Hill Project and innovative initiatives like the collaborative loom, the episode highlights the enduring importance of memory, respect, and connection in healing and understanding collective history.

Final Quote:

"It's a puzzle missing. I have the piece of the puzzle that I just felt like that my family needed."
– Kimberly Jackson [35:59]

---

Additional Notes: This summary focuses exclusively on the episode's content, omitting advertisements and non-content segments. It captures the essence of the discussions, insights, and emotional journeys presented, providing a comprehensive overview for those unfamiliar with the episode.

Transcript

[Ryan Seacrest]

Oikos presents 15 seconds of strength.

[Bill Lee]

Here we go.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Steve's got a trunk full of groceries and no one to help him.

[Kimberly Jackson]

Oh, that's tough.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Jim looks like a five trip load at least. He grabs the first bag, the second bob. It looks like he's trying to do it all in one trip. He shimmies the door open, steps over the dog. Oh, and he stumbles.

[Kimberly Jackson]

Oh, right into the kitchen without missing a beat. Jim.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Now that's a man who eats his protein packed Oikos. With 15 grams of complete protein in each cup. Oikos Triple Zero can help build strength for every day. Oikos stronger makes everything better.

[Paige Sorbo]

Hey, it's me, Paige. Hi, I'm Page Sorbo and I'm so excited to share my new shoe collection at DSW filled with my favorite styles and trends for spring. Because if you know me, you know I'm kind of obsessed with shoes. And by kind of obsessed, I mean head over heels. You're going to love these shoes. So snag super cute styles like cute flats, fun heels and cool sneakers from the Paige Desorvo Collection right now at your DSW store or dsw.comchch Chumba looking for excitement?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Chumba Casino is here. Play anytime. Play anywhere. Play on the train. Play at the store. Play at home. Play when you're bored. Play today for your chance to win and get daily bonuses when you log in. So what are you waiting for? Don't delay. Chumba Casino is free to play.

[Bill Lee]

Experience social gameplay like never before.

[Lyda Gibson]

Go to Chumba Casino right now to play hundreds of games including online slots, bingo, Slingo and more. Live the chumba [e-mail] no purchase necessary.

[Ryan Seacrest]

VGW Group void where prohibited by law 21/terms and cond supply Spring has officially sprung and we're craving even more sunshine. The solution? A cheap Caribbean beach vacay. Cheap Caribbean is all about finding you the best beach deals for your budget. Check out their semi annual sale and take an extra $200 off site wide vacation packages of four plus nights to your favorite tropical beach destinations. Don't wait. This awesome offer won't last forever. Go to cheapcaribbean.com to start your search for paradise and book before April 30th to save Big.

[Kimberly Jackson]

And the patients would.

[Bill Lee]

Come out on the front lawn.

[Kimberly Jackson]

But as the city moved that way, they had to borrow the porches because.

[Lyda Gibson]

They became a buggy problem. Well, they would get out and show out on the lawn and people would stop riding around.

[Bill Lee]

Oh, buggy Oh, I thought you meant horses. Oh, no, no.

[Kimberly Jackson]

Horse and buggy.

[Bill Lee]

Over the course of the old asylum's life, it grew. Jackson grew around it. Its story unspooled threads joining the tapestry of ever expanding daily life in central Mississippi. Back at the state hospital museum, Donna Brown and Kathy Denton showed us around a room full of photos and memorabilia from the old asylum. There are a lot of stories, too. If you look closely at the picture, you can see there's a road that turns here in circles up close to the building. Sunday afternoons in Jackson, it was a common fun thing to do to go picnic on the grounds and watch the quote crazy people after the old asylum shuttered its doors. When its buildings were torn down in the 50s, the stories died down for a bit, too. But with the rediscovery of the asylum hill cemetery, the lore is also coming back to life. Asylum hill's Lyda Gibson even has her own.

[Lyda Gibson]

Well, the first time I heard about the old asylum was from my mother. My mother is still with us. She is 95 years old, but she remembers as a child driving through the gravel driveway in front of the asylum on Sunday afternoons and waving at the patients. We've had lots of people who've come, you know, from the community and said, yeah, oh, yeah. That was like the place to go.

[Bill Lee]

For the most part, the stories that survive are the ones that lean into the southern gothic of it all. Here's Bill Lee, Wayne's cousin.

[Kimberly Jackson]

I knew that the old asylum was.

[Dr. Didlake]

There because I've talked to friends that are a little older than I am that remember the asylum. I remember one of my friends I never will forget.

[Kimberly Jackson]

He would walk past it a lot.

[Dr. Didlake]

Of times at night and hear those poor souls.

[Kimberly Jackson]

I remember that's the expression he used.

[Dr. Didlake]

I could hear those poor souls wailing in the asylum.

[Bill Lee]

The final years of the asylum did not leave a great impression on Jackson. That shifting Yazoo clay had done a number on the foundation, which was then doing a number on the walls and ceilings. Plaster was literally crumbling onto the patient beds. But repairs were out of the question. Any state funds flowed to the new state hospital being built, the one out in Whitefield.

[Lyda Gibson]

Whitefield was funded by the legislature in 1926. Then the Depression happened. Then there were shortages of everything, you know, and so the building of Whitefield and the opening of Whitefield was delayed until 1935. So you had from 1926 to 1935, when they were trying not to put any more money into this building that was literally condemned by the time the patients moved Out.

[Bill Lee]

When the new state hospital, Whitfield, opened its doors, the old asylum shut its own. And there wasn't a lick of overlap between the two.

[Dr. Didlake]

The old asylum closed. Whitefield opened. Completely new staff, completely new department of the Mississippi government. It was not like it was a legacy institution. The last 2,500 patients from here went to Whitefield, but that's the only transfer that happened. It was a brand new operation. We had this huge institution that operated for 80 years and then it remained derelict for 20. And then the university medical center comes on and there's no transfer of institutional memory. The buildings were torn down. The cemetery remained derelict. Up on the hill, unattended, forgotten, unused, unneeded.

[Bill Lee]

Whitfield was about as blank of a slate as you could find. If there were a way for the state to sanction forgetting, this was it.

[Dr. Didlake]

Many of us, most of us in medicine have sufficient egos. And we all believe that history starts with our arrival. So the medical school opened and it was churning from the very beginning. Patient care and research and education and no time to look back. And we're building this brand new modern medical center and we're looking forward. We have no interest in preserving old crumbling history.

[Bill Lee]

Well, except the old crumbling history is right there. A cemetery taking up 12 acres of this town. So the real question is, what kind of space will Jackson make for the people interred there? I'm Larison Campbell and this is under Yazoo Cl. When we sat down with Lyda for one of our many chats, her phone rang mid interview. Most days that would be a pretty big bummer. But not this time. The person on the other end of the line was Kimberly Jackson, a descendant.

[Lyda Gibson]

Hey, Kimberly, I am fine. So I was calling you because I have found some information about Cine and I'm going to send you the forms that you need to fill out to get it. It's some patient records and anyway, it's pretty self explanatory. But I also wanted to ask you.

[Bill Lee]

Kim is a lot of things to a lot of people. She's a school counselor right now, pre.

[Kimberly Jackson]

K through second grade. They think you're a superstar. Every day you. It's like walking on a red carpet every day.

[Bill Lee]

She's a caregiver for her mother, for her aunt and for her uncle. Kim is dedicated to doing it all that was clear even when we were trying to pin her down for an interview time.

[Kimberly Jackson]

Wait, Tillers, there's a. I'm Kim. Yes, there is actually a couch on the third floor, but I mean, it's oh, really? Uh huh.

[Bill Lee]

That might be more. The day we met her, she'd driven a little over an hour from her home in Carthage, Mississippi. She was in Jackson to bring her aunt and uncle to their doctor's appointments. And so that's where we did the interview, on a couch outside the doctor's office, right next to the vending machines and the elevator bank. So if you hear a clank or a ding, now, you know, this is good. And that might be the fourth floor up there, in which case it doesn't look like they have as much area as we do.

[Paige Sorbo]

So.

[Bill Lee]

Perfect. Okay. So thank you for making this drive.

[Kimberly Jackson]

You're welcome. Like I said, my aunt and uncle.

[Bill Lee]

And they're on the third floor?

[Kimberly Jackson]

Yeah, they're right in there.

[Bill Lee]

Oh, that's perfect. Okay, great.

[Kimberly Jackson]

And my aunt said as she swooped.

[Bill Lee]

In for a hug hello, I clocked her light pink long sleeve shirt with the slogan love yourself. It's abundantly clear that to Kim, family is everything. Almost straight. From the moment we arrived, she waxed poetic about a whole slew of relatives from her grandmother's dating history.

[Kimberly Jackson]

One gentleman from the community said, I'm going to walk you home, but let me run out here to get a lamp, you know, so I can walk.

[Bill Lee]

To her great uncle's fashion choices.

[Kimberly Jackson]

He wore these knickerbockers and thought that he was looking real sharp with these knickerbocker pants on, you know, so they would laugh, they would joke at him and say, you think you something with these knickerbockers on, you know, whatever.

[Bill Lee]

The cloth of her life is made up of these memories of these people. But like all the descendants we spoke to, there was that familiar blank spot, a rent in the fabric. So if you would. Yeah, I mean, tell us about your. It's your great grandmother, right?

[Kimberly Jackson]

Mm.

[Bill Lee]

What do you know about her?

[Kimberly Jackson]

Bits and pieces. So since all of this has occurred, I found out a little bit more. Uh, so I always. We were always told her name was Zinni. She married my grandfather, Monroe G. And they had four children. They had three boys and then a girl, which was my grandmother, Marie. So they lived in Conway. And my great grandmother was born and raised in another community in Leakey county called Pilgrim Rest. And so a lot of her, you know, family members are buried in the Pilgrim Rest Church cemetery, except for her. But I'll get to that.

[Bill Lee]

Pilgrim Rest was a small community not too far away. Zeni's whole family was nearby. But then things went south for Zeni. Her mom Died. It shook everyone in the family, but no one more than Zeni, a young mother herself.

[Kimberly Jackson]

And as the story goes, when her mother passed away, she became, I guess, so despondent with grief that she slowly started to. Her mental health started to decline. My grandmother always said that she had a nervous breakdown.

[Bill Lee]

Kim's grandmother was Zenny's youngest child, not even 10 years old, yet one cousin.

[Kimberly Jackson]

Said that she would leave home, she would put my grandma on her hip and take off walking. And you know, people be like, you know, where is it? You know, looking for her, where is it? And she would hitch a ride, going to Pilgrim Rest. She would just take off, poop, hitch a ride, go to Pilgrim Rest, you know, hitch a ride, get on, you know, and come back. They said she'd always come back. She'd always come back. My great grandfather was able to get her admitted to Asylum Hill.

[Bill Lee]

But Kim's great grandfather Zeni's husband, Monroe, remained devoted. His wife was his wife in sickness or in health.

[Kimberly Jackson]

According to my cousins, my great grandfather went to visit her at least three times. And that must have been a hard track for him. Exactly that. Now that touched me. Cause when I think about now, this is Mississippi in the 19, late, the late teens, you know, him traveling either by wagon or very Model T kind of a car. Who knows, you know, to think about him getting back and forth three times. Oh, he loved her. You can't tell me he didn't love her. If he was determined to visit her three times. Yeah, he meant to bring her home until he, for some reason thought that he couldn't. He and her family were thinking, of course, that this was going to be a short term stay, you know. And so her brother said to my great grandfather, so when are you bringing Zanny home? And he said, I don't know. Every time I go, she gets further and further away from me. While she was at Asylum Hill, she passed away. So as far as I know, it was through a telegram is how he found out that she passed. As far as I know, he was not able to see her before she was buried. You know, they thinking she's going somewhere for a little while and she never comes back. You know, my heart has gone out to them. And I could tear up now thinking about that, that, you know, you thinking she, you know, she'll be back. You know, she gonna get some help and she'll be back. And so my grandmother wasn't even. She wasn't 10. And the last memory she had of her mother was her making her a birthday cake.

[Bill Lee]

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.

[Dr. Didlake]

It.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Is Ryan Seacrest here. There was a recent social media trend which consisted of flying on a plane with no music, no movies, no entertainment. But a better trend would be going to chumbacasino.com it's like having a mini social casino in your pocket. Chumba casino has over 100 online casino style games, all absolutely free. It's the most fun you can have online and on a plane. So grab your free welcome bonus now@chumbac casino.com sponsored by Chumba Casino. No purchase necessary. VGW Group Void where prohibited by law 21 + terms and conditions apply.

[Emily Wicke]

You know that excitement that builds when.

[Bill Lee]

The facts of a cold case start to heat up? Of course. Are there new clues this month? Forget clues.

[Emily Wicke]

There's huge savings this month at Cheap. Caribbean Heats Up.

[Paige Sorbo]

I get it.

[Bill Lee]

I'm so ready for the beach.

[Emily Wicke]

It's CheapCaribbean.com semiannual sale. One of the best times for you to save an extra 200 site wide on vacation packages of four nights or more.

[Bill Lee]

So let's bounce.

[Emily Wicke]

Go to CheapCaribbean.com to start your search for paradise and book before April 30th to save big.

[Paige Sorbo]

PayPal lets you pay all your pals like your graduation gifters.

[Bill Lee]

Who's paying for the mattress topper? You mean the beanbag chair? Aren't we a mini fridge? Can we create a pool on PayPal? It lets us collect the money before we buy. Ooh yes, that's smart. Glad we can agree on something easily.

[Paige Sorbo]

Pool split and Send Money with PayPal get started in the PayPal app. A PayPal account is required to send and receive money. A balance account is required to create a pool.

[California Psychics Host]

When you haven't found love, it can feel like everyone else has. It's in every movie, every song, and all the PDA looking for love sucks. Thankfully, California psychics can give you the guidance you need to find the one we guarantee if your reading isn't life changing, it's free and new customers receive 20 minutes for just $20. Visit californiapsychics.com and experience the joy of certainty. California psychics.

[Bill Lee]

The southern ethos, the reverence for the grave. It ran deep in Kim's family. Cemeteries have been part of her life since childhood.

[Kimberly Jackson]

My grandma was big on visiting cemeteries. It was a whole thing for them to have the churches to get together and clean the cemetery. You know, mow the lawn of the cemetery, change out the flowers. That was the whole thing. That was a day set aside to do that kind of thing. Look, we going. I went to. I'm a little kid. I'm at all the funerals. It felt like, you know, there was always obituaries and always, of course, like I said, stories to be told. But hers was always that sense of unknown.

[Bill Lee]

Kim's grandmother had no grave to point to, Just one memory, One story of her mother she could pass down to her own children.

[Kimberly Jackson]

It was a happy memory, but it was only one memory of her baking this cake for her birthday. And to then go from that to news of her, of her passing, it's just a lot of gaps and a sense of a little bit sense of longing. Now, she would never really dwell on it too long. Like, if she mentioned her, she would say a little something and that was it. So she wasn't. She didn't ever shy away from it. But there was just always this sense of that's all there is, you know, that like there's. This is the end of the story. There's nothing else but with a lot of love, but a twinge of sadness.

[Bill Lee]

I mean, that's really interesting because I feel like we've talked to so many or, you know, a fair number of people at this point who had relatives who were in there. And it's kind of the reactions I've heard have been a little bit different in that I think there was a lot of shame associated.

[Kimberly Jackson]

But they never had. They never tried to keep it a secret. It wasn't a secret that she went to Whitfield, as they called it. There was never. They never did. Never did. And I will say that, yeah, it wasn't something they tried to hide. They were always very upfront about that.

[Bill Lee]

Her family never tried to hide her, but Zeni got lost anyhow. Part of the confusion was bureaucratic. In Mississippi these days, when people say asylum, they mean whitefield, the current state hospital. Kim and her family, like many Mississippians, never even knew there was an old asylum in Jackson.

[Kimberly Jackson]

As time went on, they called it Whitfield. So in our minds, we're Thinking that she was buried where Whitefield is, out in Pearl somewhere.

[Bill Lee]

So when Kim went to search for her great grandmother's records, she contacted Whitfield. Every time, they'd just say they had no records of Zinni because Zeni was never there. For Kim, it felt like the asylum had just swallowed her whole. But Zinni hadn't vanished. She was closer than anyone knew.

[Kimberly Jackson]

My grandmother attended Tougaloo, so when I think about it, she was not that far from where her mother was buried. And she had no idea, no idea that that's where she was buried.

[Bill Lee]

Tougaloo College is in Jackson, just six miles from the old asylum. And for decades, Zenny's daughter and then her granddaughter, and finally her great granddaughter passed right by that cemetery like ships in the night. Until, remember back in episode two, that PR road show that the Asylum Hill project went on? The one where they spoke in Rotary clubs and put out newspaper ads?

[Kimberly Jackson]

I see an ad in the Carthage Jennian, which is our local newspaper, and it mentioned that the following people were believed to have been buried at Asylum Hill. And I see her name. And so it had a contact number. It turned out to be lidar. And that's how I found out. You ever watch Roots? You know how Alex Halen, when he made it to Africa and he went to the. He went to the village where Kunta Kinte was born, and he was like, I found you. You know, that's how I felt. I was like, oh, my God, we found her. I found her and I let my family know, you know, and, you know, the whole. You know, I was like, oh, my God. I told my mom first. I told her. I was like, you know, grandma's in the name and the paper, you know, and, yeah, so it was. I felt a sense of. I felt a sense of relief. But just to know that, you know, I was just. So. It was just mind boggling that. To think that. To see her name in print, to know that, oh, there's more to the story. I'm able to fill in the gaps. Just mind blowing. Cause think about this. By this time, my mama's in her late 70s, you know, finding all of this out. And so, like I said, all of a sudden, Zinni went from being, you know, a story to a real, you know, person, you know, think about a person with a whole entire life, you know, not just, you know, creating a home life with, you know, her grandfather and, you know, having my, you know. Cause basically it was when they heard of Grandma Zenith, it was the Same way she told it to us, you know, there was no extra stories, you know what I'm saying? And so to go from, wow, so, you know, there was an actual. They go from her being admitted to the hospital to her dying. No. No news of what happened while she was there. No nothing.

[Bill Lee]

What is it about connecting, like, these dots? What. What does it. As the person who's still alive today, like, what does it give you?

[Kimberly Jackson]

For lack of a better word, completeness. My people always talked about their family, always both sides, you know, always was all of this talk about, remember what grandma did, remember what uncle so and so did, or cousin so and so. There was always these stories, always. And when it came. And so it makes me. Like I said, it makes me give a sense of completion in a way. Finding Zenith. I just really feel like, ah, I got it. This is what this is. It fills me to finally know that there was an end to her story. Whether happy or sad, there was an end because it didn't. It was just such a mystery, such a mystery as to what happened to her with just about everybody else, you know. You know, there was a beginning to the story and there was an end to the story, and they have the whole, you know, the whole middle. There wasn't that with her. There was not that with her.

[Bill Lee]

Kim has something a lot of other descendants have been looking for. She can just about point to the spot where Zinni is buried.

[Kimberly Jackson]

There's a grove of trees in the grassy area. If I'm not mistaken, that's where she would have been buried. I ride by there now and think, you know, she's there. I think about it as her burial place. You know, when I drive by, I look out there and I think, you know, there you. You know, there she is. And that's what my grandmother and her siblings did not ever have, was a sense of there she is, or we can go out there and visit her when we would like to, or drive by. They did not have that sense at all. They never knew where she was.

[Bill Lee]

So Kim checks in with her. She fills Zinni in on what's become of her family.

[Kimberly Jackson]

Now, somebody that your children were raised with love. So, you know, don't think that, you know, they were just out there in the world left onto their own devices. No, they were raised in the manner you would have want them to be raised. They were loved in the way that you would want them to be loved. We did not ever forget about you. You always loved, you always missed. We just did not forget. But now we have found you.

[Bill Lee]

Kim is the poster child for what the Asylum Hill Project is hoping to pull off.

[Dr. Didlake]

I will tell this story anywhere I can. I would be happy to. I think the more we get the word out, the deeper our engagement will be with the community, the more transparent we'll be and the more stories that we'll hear back.

[Bill Lee]

By the way, Dr. Didlake says that any descendants who may be listening can contact the Asylum Hill Project through its website, asylumhill.org we will be happy to.

[Dr. Didlake]

Talk to them, describe what we're doing, engage with them, see if they would like to give us a name to look for.

[Bill Lee]

But of course, the Asylum Hill Project isn't just about connecting descendants with information about their loved ones. It's about that land. The land that the medical center needs to build more vital medical infrastructure. The land currently occupied by thousands of former patients. As they've talked to more people like him, the folks at Asylum Hill have begun to formulate a plan. But it's one that will take time. There's the project of sorting archived patient records.

[Lyda Gibson]

I think I estimated that it would take five years, given our current staffing, to just get everything indexed and separated.

[Bill Lee]

And, of course, the cemetery exhumations, the process of removing the remains to make space for the medical center's expansion.

[Lyda Gibson]

In an ideal world, for instance, if we don't have constant flooding, which always slows us down in Mississippi, and if we had an appropriate crew size, still like six or seven more years, and that's just for the excavation, that is not the analysis.

[Bill Lee]

If there are, let's say, 7,000 graves. We've talked a lot about final resting places here. That's what cemeteries are, right? Except for this one. An important thing to realize is that if we say there's 7,000 graves, that at the end of all this, there will be 7,000 sets of remains removed from the clay. And that brings up an awkward truth. There's a fine line between being taken care of, being treated like a burden. It's hard not to worry that what these former patients are more than anything else, is in the way. And if there's one clear takeaway from talking with descendants, it's that the first and foremost duty of care owed to these patients is just respect. And sometimes that looks like acknowledgment, which Dr. Didlake says is a part of what will happen next.

[Dr. Didlake]

We're going to build a memorial on campus and not reinter these individuals. That is administratively much more efficient. It also makes those remains available to any wonderful technologies that are out over the horizon that can help identify these individuals and offer them to families for traditional burial.

[Bill Lee]

So what does it mean to make remains more available? Well, for starters, they're not going back into the ground anywhere. Instead, the Asylum Hill project will build a standalone mausoleum to house the remains above ground. This is partially in service of the budget. If they wanted to rebury the remains, they'd have to buy more land to do do it on. But it's also in service of the core aim of the Asylum Hill project, to learn all they can about the old asylum, including its patients. This whole thing is part of a university, after all. And keeping everything above ground does keep the remains more available for research. There is the specter of spectacle with this plan. So Asylum Hill did what it does best. They went out to the descendant community and got their buy in for this stage of the project too.

[Lyda Gibson]

Amazingly, I'm not sure any of us expected that we would be at this point today, but here we are. And I mean, there are people who, I mean, there are descendants who've said, you know what, I don't like the idea of my relative being disturbed, but if she has to be, then this is the way I want it done.

[Dr. Didlake]

Just the level of positivity of that plan has been stunning, both in the community at large and in the descendant community and our community advisory board. So we're very happy about that. So that paradigm is acceptable.

[Bill Lee]

That paradigm is acceptable. It all ties back to that southern ethos because maybe, just maybe, building a new home for these remains in the heart of the city is the best chance for finally reintegrating these former patients with their community, interweaving the threads of their lives once again with the fabric of the city.

[Dr. Didlake]

I say, people that don't appreciate and.

[Kimberly Jackson]

Enjoy history, I say, well, we will.

[Dr. Didlake]

Relegate them to the Dead Soul Society. You can't explain it to them. They just don't. They just don't, you know, And I.

[Kimberly Jackson]

Don'T try to explain it, but it's a fascinating thing. I feel at peace knowing that I found her. You know, I felt a sense of peace knowing that we found her. So right now I'm just, I'm just, you know, living in that peace. The asylum has, for me, it has become this almost like, I guess, a historical shrine in my mind because I look at Hillman, that's one story. And you multiply that by, you know, a few thousand and then you think about what it would mean to capture those stories and how we, how we can arrive at how that Leads us to a sense of our history. Because, you know, I don't feel like this is just my family's history. I, you know, it's a bigger history.

[Dr. Didlake]

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.

[Kimberly Jackson]

He spent on it than it was to me.

[Dr. Didlake]

I was just a kid and I didn't. Didn't know. But as you get older, you know, that means more to you. And so I'm sure he's there with my granddad saying, way to go, brother.

[Bill Lee]

I just burst into tears. I really didn't expect to do that. Hadn't even gotten in. But that. That's what you're supposed to do when you hear his name. You know, that's what your body knows to do.

[Lyda Gibson]

Burst into tears.

[Bill Lee]

And you push it down. Success. And there was an impulse, like the two of us just stood there and held onto each other for a long time. I have no idea what was going around us while we were doing that.

[Lyda Gibson]

But, I mean, the thing that strikes.

[Bill Lee]

Me about all of it is how unfinished all of it feels like all the conversations, all of the interactions, there's nothing like, wow, that's done. Yeah, there's nothing done. You know, not remotely done. Nothing is done. None of it is finished. The family story goes on because the family does a little more whole than before.

[Kimberly Jackson]

And it just felt like, you know, it was just a puzzle missing. You know, you. It feels like now the piece. Like I have the piece of the puzzle that I just felt like that my family needed.

[Dr. Didlake]

If you have any standing in the state of Mississippi, part of your work is righting wrongs. There are many for this project. I don't see it so much as an overt effort to right wrongs, because I think that assumes the old stereotypical asylum motif of a terrible place, overcrowded, abandoned people. And that's not the picture that's emerging from the history that we're collecting now. Are there things that could have been done differently? And we want to both acknowledge and. And learn from those. Sure.

[Bill Lee]

The story of Asylum Hill is one of discovery, memory, pain, and catharsis. But most of all, the story of Asylum Hill is unexpected. A crew of scientists, historians, artists, school counselors, professors, and grave dousers, all digging deeper in search of understanding.

[Ryan Seacrest]

With the best, all inclusive vacation deals to Mexico and the Caribbean. Booking your getaway with cheap Caribbean vacations means you have more freedom to do your deal, whether you want to enjoy snorkeling, endless margaritas and more, or simply soak up the sun and sand in a tropical paradise. Cheap Caribbean Vacations has your deal for that. Plan and book the exact getaway you want at exactly the right price for you by using our exclusive budget beach Finder. Or find a featured family friendly all inclusive package to dreams, resorts and spas and do your [e-mail] PayPal lets you.

[Paige Sorbo]

Pay all your pals like your graduation gifters.

[Bill Lee]

Who's paying for the mattress topper? You mean the bean bag chair? Aren't we getting a mini fridge? Can we create a pool on PayPal? It lets us colle like the money before we buy. Ooh yes, that's smart. Glad we can agree on something easily.

[Paige Sorbo]

Pool split and Send Money with PayPal get started in the PayPal app. A PayPal account is required to send and receive money. A balance account is required to create a pool.

[California Psychics Host]

When you haven't found love, it can feel like everyone else has. It's in every movie, every song and all the PDA. Looking for love sucks. Thankfully, California Psychics can give you the guidance you need to find the one we guarantee if your reading isn't life changing, it's free and new customers receive 20 minutes for just $20. Visit californiapsychics.com and experience the joy of certainty.

[Emily Wicke]

California Psychics Now I'd like to introduce you to Meaningful Beauty, the famed skincare brand created by iconic supermodel Cindy Crawford. It's her secret to absolutely gorgeous skin. Meaningful Beauty makes powerful and effective skin care simple and it's loved by millions of women. It's formulated for all ages and all skin tones and types and it's designed to work as a complete skin care system, leaving your skin feeling soft, smooth and nourished. I recommend starting with Cindy's full regimen which contains all five of her best selling products including the Amazing Youth Activating Melon Serum. This next generation serum has the power of melon leaf stem cell technology. It's melon leaf stem cells encapsulated for freshness and released onto the skin to support a visible reduction in the appearance of wrinkles. With thousands of glowing five star reviews, why not give it a try? Subscribe today and you can get the Amazing Meaningful Beauty system for just $49.95. That includes our introductory five piece system, free gifts, free shipping and a 60 day money back guarantee. All that [e-mail] at.

[Bill Lee]

The Mississippi Museum of Art. NOAA's exhibit was up for nearly six months. Visitors came through, sat with the work, reckoned with their own histories. Museum staff told me that they lost count of how many people made a point to let them know that Noah's family's story of mental illness was not all that unlike their own. And the exhibit offered another very tangible way for museum goers to engage.

[Paige Sorbo]

So you'll. This thread right here, I try to go over. It's not a big deal, but I try to go over this, and ideally, it comes out under the other one on its own, so don't even worry about that. But starting, I'll go over it because that, in the end, makes it loop around the edge.

[Bill Lee]

Well, on the night of Noah's opening, we noticed this hulking structure, blonde wood and string. It was tucked into the corner of the room next to Noah's painting, cordoned off behind red velvet ropes.

[Paige Sorbo]

Like I was saying, you can make the end sort of come to about this point. Perfect. That'll be fine.

[Bill Lee]

And then.

[Paige Sorbo]

And then let your foot off.

[Bill Lee]

It was a loom four feet wide, maybe a bit taller.

[Paige Sorbo]

There's not a whole lot of these out in the world. It was like a big batch of them made for a craft school in Canada in the 1920s. And this is one of them. Sometimes people will contact me because they'll be looking for Millville loom, and they'll run across me and contact me like, where'd you get it? But looms are like that.

[Bill Lee]

That was the loom's owner.

[Paige Sorbo]

My name's Emily Wicke.

[Bill Lee]

Emily's not a weaver by trade. She's an archaeological field tech, one of the field techs working on the Asylum Hill site.

[Paige Sorbo]

Beat it down, okay?

[Bill Lee]

Or we'll get this out. She'd set this loom up at the museum with a very specific project in mind, a collaborative one. Over the course of the summer, anyone who'd come to see Noah's show to visit the museum would be invited to weave a few rows.

[Paige Sorbo]

Yeah. So my idea is for anyone that comes in that will. That wants to. That will hopefully enjoy it, to sit down and add to this.

[Bill Lee]

I asked her about the colors of the threads. She dyed them herself using natural dyes like black walnut, indigo, goldenrod, and yazoo clay taken straight from the old asylum cemetery. The project is community driven to its core, from the weavers down to the pattern. Emily's embedded within the loom.

[Paige Sorbo]

The warp is the vertical threads that are running through this. And I did all of the planning and setting of that. It's called dressing the loom. Because it takes so long to set it up and then. But then to see it create this pattern that's. You don't even understand how it's happening.

[Bill Lee]

The community represented in that pattern isn't just the living, the people who can get to the museum and add their personal touch to this cloth. It's also every patient who passed through the doors of the old asylum between 1892 and 1919 that were in the asylum. The vertical strings on this loom, their color and how they alternate with each other represent actual data about the people who once lived at the asylum. Their race, their gender.

[Paige Sorbo]

Yeah, so right over here, I referenced these biennial reports of who died and they separated.

[Kimberly Jackson]

Oh, so this explains it.

[Paige Sorbo]

It's basically they separated it by male and female and white and population of color.

[Bill Lee]

Okay.

[Paige Sorbo]

So I separated it in here like that.

[Bill Lee]

Every single vertical thread represents four patients. A black thread signals a new year.

[Paige Sorbo]

So every time you see the stripes change, there's two colors for one year. And every time you see that rollover, that's another year.

[Bill Lee]

As the number of patients at the asylum grows, so do the stripes widening from left to right. As more and more people of color become patients at the asylum, vertical green threads begin to outnumber gray. The facts, the data. Emily embedded these into the vertical pattern when she set up the loom. But the horizontal patterns, those are up to the weaver. The colors they pick, how they pass, the shuttle from one hand to the other, whether they were nervous or forceful or methodical, all informs what the final fabric will look like.

[Paige Sorbo]

So I've done the hard part of setting up the warp and doing the calculations to make it a specific type of weave. But the way the pattern is embedded, people will be able to do all kinds of different patterns, and by they can make it as plain or as crazy or abstract as they want. So hopefully, every time someone weaves, they'll be sort of connecting to that past, and we'll be sort of complicating those overly simplified statistics in my mind. But I hope it'll mean many different things to many people. I hope everyone will come and have an experience with it.

[Bill Lee]

The weaving isn't just for the edification of the living. After all, this cemetery, what's left of it, it's never really about us. And neither is this fabric that Emily and others have brought into being, because this isn't just a cloth or a throw that's being woven. It's a burial shroud, much like the ones the patients themselves were buried in. Sometimes with too many safety pins. I love the idea of being buried and getting returned to the earth, returning to the mother, you know, I just really love that he was talking about shame and like how you have shame from an unmarked grave and not knowing.

[Kimberly Jackson]

What happened, happen to someone.

[Bill Lee]

But like, it's really kind of beautiful. Like, like we really don't. Our graves don't last that long.

[Paige Sorbo]

I find a lot of comfort in knowing the ephemeral like of my mistakes and otherwise, but just, you know, I just find that to be comforting that I'm just this little part of a bigger story, you know, a huge story.

[Bill Lee]

50 million years ago, some bits of a mineral called smectite got swept up, carried along on fast moving waters flowing south. Eventually the waters slowed and the minerals fell, settling down, forming layer upon layer of clay. Time passed. The sun rose, the rain fell, the rivers changed course. A city got built on top of the clay. The rain fell, the sun rose, the clay swelled and shrank and foundations got wrecked. At an asylum on a hill, a cemetery was laid into this clay. At an asylum on a hill, a cemetery was forgotten. Then, not all too long ago, hands scooped up some of that very clay. They added it to water and added yarn to the dark orange slurry. The two sat there together for weeks, one one staining the other. Then that pair of hands pulled out the yarn, wrung out most of the water and most of the clay. At the end of it all, that yarn would be wound around a spool and set on a loom. It would become part of a fabric, one created by hundreds of pairs of hands, intimately weaving the past into the present. It's like I said at the beginning, Yazoo clay is the bane of central Mississippi. It wreaks havoc on everything from our homes to our graves to our memories. But it's also the source of great beauty. Mississippians, after all, grow deep roots. We kind of can't help it. Maybe that's why we're so hung up on the dirt they're in under. Yazoo Clay is executive producer 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 Jay and Denie Stein.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Spring has officially sprung and we're craving even more sunshine. The solution? A Cheap Caribbean beach vacay. Cheap Caribbean is all about finding you the best beach deals for your budget. Check out their semi annual sale and take an extra $200 off site wide vacation packages of four plus nights to your favorite tropical beach destinations. Don't wait. This awesome offer won't last forever. Go to CheapCaribbean.com to start your search for paradise and book before April 30th to save big for some of us.

[Bill Lee]

Personal finances aren't just personal. They include a lot more people than ourselves, loved ones, neighbors, the communities we call home, and the causes we hold in our hearts. At Thrivent, we help plan your financial picture with the bigger picture in mind. Because even though our business is helping guide your finances, our ambition is to make it mean so much more. Thrivent where money means more Connect with [e-mail] when you haven't found love, it.

[California Psychics Host]

Can feel like everyone else has. It's in every movie, every song, and all the PDA Looking for love sucks. Thankfully, California Psychics can give you the guidance you need to find the one we guarantee if your reading isn't life changing, it's free and new customers receive 20 minutes for just $20. Visit californiapsychics.com and experience the joy of certainty.

[Paige Sorbo]

California Psychics PayPal lets you pay all your pals like your graduation gifters.

[Bill Lee]

Who's paying for the mattress topper? You mean the beanbag chair? Aren't we getting a min fridge? Can we create a pool on PayPal? It lets us collect the money before we buy. Ooh, yes, that's smart. Glad we can agree on something easily.

[Paige Sorbo]

Pool split and Send Money with PayPal get started in the PayPal app. A PayPal account is required to send and receive money. A balance account is required to create a pool.