Host Larrison Campbell catches up with four of the people she interviewed for the podcast to hear new family stories and reexamine how this asylum continues to shape their lives.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: Why revisit the stories from Under Yazoo Clay?
This just sounds like a guy f***ing off behind a wall. It does. Listen to Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Chapter 2: Who is Noah Satterstrom and what is his connection to the asylum?
Today we're dropping a bonus episode of Under Yazoo Clay. The response to this series has been overwhelming, so as a way of saying thank you to all our listeners, we wanted to check back in with some of the people we interviewed back in April of 2024 to see how the last year has treated them.
One of those is descendant Noah Satterstrom, the artist who told his great-grandfather's story in 183 different canvases. As it happens, Noah was the sort of entry point for this whole series. Back in 2023, I met up with Betsy Bradley, the director of the Mississippi Museum of Art.
I'd just released a podcast that was about a skeleton in my own family's closet, so to speak, and she wanted to know if I'd be interested in talking to Noah. I was. I'd heard about the old asylum. I knew that thousands of unmarked graves had been discovered on its grounds and that the University of Mississippi Medical Center was at a crossroads for how to deal with them.
In the words of the Southern scholar, Mab Segrist, it had that Southern Gothic aura. I was instantly fascinated. But as Noah and I started talking, I realized that what grabbed me the most about his story weren't the details of Dr. Smith's life and this mysterious old asylum. It was Noah and how 100 years after Dr. Smith entered the old asylum, that trauma continued to shape Noah and his family.
As we met with other descendants, I saw the same thing. Relatives they'd never met, and in some cases, like Wayne Lee, knew almost nothing about, were still present, telling them how to interact with the world, how to view themselves. But I also saw something else. A certain catharsis that comes with finally looking straight at that big thing that everyone had tried to hide.
We talked to Noah in April about what happens when, as he originally put it, the genie is let out of the bottle. How the reception to his exhibition last year has changed how he thinks about his great-grandfather, but also his own struggles with mental health. Oh, and in the meantime, Noah's also come across even more of his great-grandfather's medical records.
Records that show it wasn't just Noah trying to uncover the truth. I'm Larison Campbell, and this is Under Yazoo Clay. You mentioned your, it talks about your family's contact with him.
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Chapter 3: What family discoveries has Noah Satterstrom made?
Yeah. So my grandmother, Margaret, never spoke of him. She was the oldest. And then she had two younger sisters and the youngest brother. It's said that the youngest brother had gone to him as he was being shipped off to World War II and sat down with him and was told not to come back and that he wanted everybody to
to consider him dead, and that he told Ethel, his wife, that no one should come see him. That was in the 40s, and there was no contact beyond that. Yet, here's a letter from my grandmother's younger sister, Mary Jane, who I loved. She died in the 80s, I think. But she was a good, like, sitting at the table smoking cigarettes and gossiping sort of
uh you know great aunt and so she is writing here to the director of uh social services at whitfield in like 1967. uh dear miss juice here's the the uh social services woman can you help me 42 years ago my father dr david lawson smith was committed to the asylum Through the years when I would wonder about him, my family said it would be upsetting to him and to me to try to see him.
When I married, my husband said the same thing. But I have reached the age when I must know whether or not he is still alive. If he is no longer living, is it possible to find out where he would be? If he is still living, is there anything I could do to make life more comfortable for him? I know nothing of the type or degree of insanity that my father has.
I don't know whether it could be inherited. In fact, I know nothing of my father except that he is there and that my mother loved him. But I have been filled with many questions for many years. I would very much appreciate it if you can help me with some of the answers. Sincerely yours, Mary Jane Hornsby.
That's a wonderful letter. It's heartbreaking and it tells you so much.
Yeah, it tells you so much. You know, she had no information. She didn't know why he was there. People only said it would be upsetting for him and you if you tried to figure this out. And so that's what I inherited. So the director of social services wrote her immediately back. And so this is in 1967 that they were writing. Dear Mrs. Hornsby,
Mr. David L. Smith was admitted to this hospital on January 28, 1925, and lived here until he died on March 7, 1965. So he had died just two years before that letter was sent. His correspondent was given as Mrs. Minnie Jane Smith, Vicksburg, Mississippi. And when he died, we tried to contact her, that was his mother, and were told that she was in a nursing home in New Orleans.
Since we were unable to contact any relative, no one was notified of his death, and he was buried here at the hospital. For many years, he lived on Cottage 5, which we called the re-educational building. He got along fine there and worked in the OT print shop regularly, and according to his record, did excellent work and was in excellent physical condition.
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Chapter 4: How does mental health history affect Noah Satterstrom?
But that's how it is. It was. It was very reassuring. And so...
we've always wondered like how my mother didn't know they didn't know that he had died until two years after he had died so it's not that they just got a letter from the asylum saying that he had just died or from whitfield saying that he died they got a letter in response to mary jane's and there was also another letter that i can actually just paraphrase but their younger sister helen
also wrote to Whitfield to the medical records office. But her letter was completely different and said, I know that my father was there. I don't have his birth or his death date. And I want to join the Revolutionary Dames Club or something. And they require proof of his birth and death. Can you just provide that for me? And that was the only time she ever reached out.
As far as I know, grandmother never reached out, but I could be wrong about that, you know.
With your own story, obviously that I think resonated with a lot of people because it really was one of the few contemporary accounts of like mental illness and issues like with mental health that we had in the whole show. Right. And so like when it comes to your story and putting that out there, have you found yourself having more conversations about it since then?
Yeah, I mean, it comes up, I wouldn't say regularly, but when it comes up, it's like the door is open. It's been so strange. You know, this story, it started so apparently suddenly and eclipsed everything for me. You know, like the year before I finished this project, I had already been working on the project for eight years or something.
And I still didn't think that it was about me in any kind of a way. It didn't occur to me that my experience of mental disorder could be funding this entire obsession with the mental illness of my great-grandfather. which seems like a very dense kind of blind spot in retrospect.
But, you know, it's amazing what the brain can do to guard ourselves against ourselves if we feel like we have to, I guess. So at the very beginning, I was living in Glasgow in like 2000, 2001. I was in a marriage that was falling apart. I was pregnant. broke living in literally one room, a basement flat with bars on the window in Glasgow. Pretty depressing.
And I was painting for like 12 hours a day. And I thought in my, you know, I was in grad school and I thought I was just being very focused. But when life started to kind of crumble around me and I was painting 12 hours a day and not taking care of myself, It was a very short step from painting all day to just walking around Glasgow all day.
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Chapter 5: Who is Kimberly Jackson and how does she keep her ancestor's memory alive?
So initially, it was like, what? Really? You know, you found her where? You know, because nobody knew where she was. This is the mystery that was Xenia has really opened up. Like, we are ecstatic. We didn't know what happened to her. We didn't. We had no idea where she was. You know, we kind of knew, but we didn't really know. This was at UMMC.
Do you know how many of us have actually had to go to UMMC for appointments? I've even been there. I was a patient there. I had no idea. So this has been great. I mean, I hate what happened to her, but I'm glad we found her.
That's incredible. I love that.
And I love this idea that the whole family is ecstatic because it really feels like, and you had talked about this before when we spoke, but this idea that like she really was still a huge part. Her presence was a part of your family still.
We never forgot her. Of course, Grandma Elvia, which is my grandmother's stepmother, played a huge role in our family. She really stepped in and was a true mother, grandmother to my grandma, her siblings, my mother, her siblings, her cousins. She really was that person. She she did get to meet a few great grands, you know, which was awesome. But she really did.
But we never my grandmother wouldn't let us forget who Xenia was. Her siblings never let them forget who she was. We all knew who she was and what she meant to them. There was just this huge question mark.
So have you thought any further about what you want to do with all this new family knowledge that you have? or what your family is going to do with this new information about Zinni?
As of right now, we haven't really talked about what to do with the information. However, I know, just want people to be helped and just want people to know that if something is going on with your loved one, just try to persevere and get them to help the best way that you can. Considering that's what my great-grandfather did in the 1920s, I just don't want anybody to stop.
And there are a lot of roadblocks in getting your people help. And then sometimes you can get your people help, and then they don't want to stick with the program or with the prescription. It's just a lot. I just don't want people to give up. Just pray and keep going. And reach out if there are resources. Reach out for those resources.
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Chapter 6: What are the challenges and hopes for families dealing with mental health issues?
I'm wanting to go and share whatever I can with them about what happened with Zinnia, just so that they'll know. And she'll just be a part of, you know, family lore, so to speak. She may already be, and I just don't know it. But I just want to share that, that, hey, she has been found. What we're going to do next, I don't know. But hopefully it'll help somebody.
If it has assisted anyone, encouraged anyone to, hey, try to find what happened to your lost loved ones, relatives. Because, you know, some people are just lost out here. You know, some people are missing. And they don't have a clue. If nothing else, I'm hoping that that even gives them hope. That your people will come home. You will find out what happened to them.
Get your people to help son, daughter, uncle, brother, sister, the help that they need. Mom or dad, the help that they need with their mental health issues. Just whatever. I just hope someone has been encouraged.
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 today at msmuseumart.org. That's msmuseumart.org.
I'm Soledad O'Brien, and on my podcast, Murder on the Towpath, I'm taking you back to the 1960s. Mary Pinchot Meyer was a painter who lived in Georgetown in Washington, D.C. Every day, she took a daily walk along the towpath near the E&O Canal.
So when she was killed in a wealthy neighborhood... She had been shot twice in the head and in the back behind the heart.
The police arrived in a heartbeat. Within 40 minutes, a man named Raymond Crump Jr. was arrested. He was found nearby, soaking wet, and he was black. Only one woman dared defend him, civil rights lawyer W. Roundtree. Join me as we unravel this story with a crazy twist. Because what most people didn't know is that Mary was connected to a very powerful man.
I pledge you that we shall neither commit nor provoke aggression.
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