An Unknown Loss to Winfield, Kansas

The story told in the following post is true. Full names have been omitted for privacy.]

In 1973, Winfield, Kansas, celebrated its Centennial Year with festive occasions and high hopes for the future. Construction began on the new courthouse and new high school, and Strother Field was repurposed  for municipal use. (It had been a training camp for the Air Corps Cadets during World War II). Tours at the Winfield Crayola plant were more popular than ever, and all seemed bright for the county seat of Cowley.       

That same year, a little four-year-old girl moved to Winfield. It would become her hometown for more than half-a-century. Her name was Linda. 

Linda never stepped foot in the new high school (nor any school for that matter). She never strolled down Main Street or played at Island Park or toured the Crayola factory. You see, Linda had unthinkable limitations. She could not walk… or talk… or focus on the view beyond her window in a four-story fortress that towered on the outskirts of town.

Cloistered in that eerie structure, Linda and hundreds of others with other types of issues were unseen by the 11,000 people in town (except by those who worked there). This isolation was no reflection on the good people of Winfield. The same sad-but-necessary reality was true of hundreds of other towns in states across America where such institutions once existed. 

When the main building of this sprawling facility was first erected in 1887, it was officially called "The State Asylum for Idiotic and Imbecile Youth." Much more cruel were the unofficial names commonly used for such places. In 1909 the name was changed to the "State Hospital for the Feeble Minded." Various other euphemisms ensued until 1957 when the name "Winfield State Hospital" was adopted. That was the name used in the address on Linda's paperwork in 1973,

Were it not for a few employees assigned to her, Linda lived unknown in that maze of long corridors and barred windows until 1984. The extent to which she was virtually unaware of her surroundings was a blessing. Eventually, Winfield's State Hospital was closed, its residents relocated, and the entire facility became the state correctional facility it is today. By the time Linda moved to a new group home in town, she was fifteen, but other than the changes that come with age, her severe physical limitations remained. As a ward of the state, she was totally dependent on those in charge of her care. 

It’s hard to know whether the more homelike setting helped Linda remember that she had once lived in a house with siblings of her own. The circumstances that removed her from her original home, where her life-changing head injuries had been sustained, also removed all three of the other children discovered there. As the result of a wise judge’s order (with the help of Child Protective Services), Linda's siblings were placed in separate adoptive families all across the state. They had lost all contact with each other for decades, including with Linda whose condition made such placement impossible. Thus, the state hospital became her home and Winfield her hometown for the rest of her life. 

Linda experienced more tragedy as a child and an adult than any one person should have to endure, and yet Winfield was also a place where she was deeply loved by angels seen and unseen. 

“Caregivers” we call them because they bring caring kindness to an otherwise lonely existence; the strength of their arms lift a body at rest that must be turned; their legs walk behind the wheelchair; their hands apply the balm of Gilead; their eyes show the love meant to come from a mother; and above all, their voice gives answer to the age-old question… “Who cares?” They care, the “caregivers," those earthly angels who care for the "least of these." (Matthew 25:40)

Through the decades in Winfield, Linda was blessed to have such angles watching over her. Some did so for many years at a time. THANK YOU. Thank you for caring for one so much in need of love as life around her passed beyond her control but not her notice.. Linda never sang a song or danced a dance or tapped her foot to a bluegrass tune, but she did know the essential rhythms of life: like breathing in and out; the beating of her heart, and the blinking of eyes through which she saw the kindness of caregivers. It was that care and not the turning of calendar pages that gave Linda's days meaning.

 

To those reading here who may wonder why a sister of Linda chose to share these thoughts with strangers. It is for the same reason she chose to place a large headstone at her sister's final resting place in Winfield. It is not unlike the reason thousands gather each year to honor the Unknown Soldier's tomb in Arlington. That monument reads: "Here Rests in Honored Glory an American Soldier known but to God." Linda's siblings feel something like that: It is altogether fitting and proper to bless an unknown soul with the gift of human remembrance. 

If you someday see in the cemetery this angel holding a heart, know that is a tribute to Linda's lifelong caregivers to whom she was not unknown. [Last name omitted from photo for privacy.]

Linda passed away in Winfield, Kansas, on Monday, April 7, 2025. She was fifty-nine. It is believed that she was the last living resident who had once lived in the foreboding castle once known as "the asylum."  She is survived by five siblings some of whom, in recent years, learned of her whereabouts and were able to reunite with her.. One of them was an infant at the time of the court-ordered disbursement of Linda and her siblings. Upon learning of Linda's plight, her "little sister" became an advocate for providing the best possible living conditions for Linda.. She and one of Linda's brothers were with Linda at the time of her passing. Romans 12:15 encourages us to " Rejoice with those who rejoice, and to weep with those who weep." Thank you for sharing in our sadness from that April day, and in the hope that comes with spring through Him who makes all things new.

Note: I am a brother-in-law of Linda's younger sibling mentioned above. In 1980, I married into the family that adopted her as an infant. On the afternoon of Linda's passing, my sister-in-law was heavy-hearted and asked if I might write an obituary for her sister Linda. I was honored to do so, but the circumstances of Linda's life (some of which were too horrific to include in this post) made writing a typical obituary very challenging. It is unusual for an obituary to consist of the things an unknown person could not do. As I reflected on Linda's life, and on the many changes that came to Winfield and hundreds of other towns that were once home to state hospitals, I thought a retrospective on how America once treated "the least of these" and a tribute to true CAREGIVERS  might be of some comfort to those who may have similar stories to share.