The Lives They Left Behind

Download or read book The Lives They Left Behind written by Darby Penney and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010-02 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than four hundred abandoned suitcases filled with patients' belongings were found when Willard Psychiatric Center closed in 1995 after 125 years of operation. In this fully-illustrated social history, they are skillfully examined and compared to the written record to create a moving-and devastating-group portrait of twentieth-century American psychiatric care.

Download or read book The Lives They Left Behind written by Darby Penney and published by Bellevue Literary Press. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acclaimed portrait of institutionalized patients whose abandoned possessions recall their forgotten lives “A deeply moving testament to the human side of mental illness.” —Oliver Sacks When Willard State Hospital closed its doors in 1995, after operating as one of New York State’s largest mental institutions for over 120 years, a forgotten attic filled with suitcases belonging to former patients was discovered. Using the possessions found in these suitcases along with institutional records and doctors’ notes from patient sessions, Darby Penney, a leading advocate of patients’ rights, and Peter Stastny, a psychiatrist and documentary filmmaker, were able to reconstruct the lives of ten patients who resided at Willard during the first half of the twentieth century. The Lives They Left Behind tells their story. In addition to these human portraits, the book contains over 100 photographs as well as valuable historical background on how this state-funded institution operated. As it restores the humanity of the individuals it so poignantly evokes, The Lives They Left Behind reveals the vast historical inadequacies of a psychiatric system that has yet to heal itself.

Download or read book The Girl They Left Behind written by Roxanne Veletzos and published by Atria Books. This book was released on 2019-09-03 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sweeping historical romance that is “gripping, tragic, yet filled with passion and hope” (Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author), offering a vivid and unique portrayal of life in war-torn 1941 Bucharest during World War II and its aftermath—perfect for fans of Lilac Girls and Sarah’s Key. On a freezing night in January 1941, a little Jewish girl is found on the steps of an apartment building in Bucharest. With Romania recently allied with the Nazis, the Jewish population is in grave danger so the girl is placed in an orphanage and eventually adopted by a wealthy childless couple who name her Natalia. As she assimilates into her new life, she all but forgets the parents who were forced to leave her behind. As a young woman in Soviet Romania, Natalia crosses paths with Victor—an important official in the Communist regime that she used to know as an impoverished young student. Now they are fatefully drawn into a passionate affair despite the obstacles swirling around them and Victor’s dark secrets. When Natalia is suddenly offered a one-time chance at freedom, Victor is determined to help her escape, even if it means losing her. Natalia must make an agonizing decision: remain in Bucharest with her beloved adoptive parents and the man she has come to love, or seize the chance to finally live life on her own terms, and to confront the painful enigma of her past. The Girl They Left Behind “is a vividly told, beautifully written, impossible-but-true story” (Helen Bryan, internationally bestselling author of War Brides) that you won’t soon forget.

Download or read book The Willard Suitcases written by and published by . This book was released on 2016-10-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Willard Asylum for the Insane was opened in 1869 for the purpose of treating individuals in need of long-term care. Some of these patients came from other hospitals, some came from families no longer able to care for them, many came from county poorhouses, and a few came in chains. The asylum, later known as Willard State Hospital, and finally as Willard Psychiatric Center, was in rural upstate New York on the shores of Seneca Lake. Over time, Willard grew to hold several thousand patients. Throughout the twentieth century, the institution changed from an almost self- sufficient, isolated institution to a modern psychiatric hospital. In 1995 New York State closed it for budgetary reasons.The asylum distinguished itself by having a particularly close relationship to nearby communities. Generations of families worked at Willard, and when it closed, many of its recently laid off employees volunteered with the decommissioning. It was during this time that Beverly Courtwright opened a locked attic door and "rediscovered" more than four hundred suitcases belonging to former patients. Thanks to her, and the involvement of Craig Williams from the New York State Museum, the cases were preserved, and a few were eventually displayed in an exhibit at the museum in 2004. The cases are now in the permanent collection of the museum and have been catalogued and preserved. Jon Crispin has photographed at Willard regularly over the past three decades, and in March of 2011 was granted access to the suitcases and began a through documentation of the collection. His main concern throughout this project is to maintain a respect for the integrity of the resident's lives, and he is determined to tell their stories through his photographs.

Download or read book These Will Not be Left Behind written by Tim LaHaye and published by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.. This book was released on 2003 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the characters in the "Left Behind" series are fiction, the stories in this book are real. With more than two dozen real-life stories of series readers, this book chronicles the miraculous way that God has used the series to change people's lives and draw them closer to Him.

Download or read book Boys Enter the House written by David Nelson and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Here is a work that emphasizes the full view of the lives of those young people that Gacy took. . . . It is essentially the Gacy story in reverse. Victims first." —Jeff Coen, author of Murder in Canaryville As investigators brought out the bagged remains of several dozen young men from a small Chicago ranch home and paraded them in front of a crowd of TV reporters and spectators, attention quickly turned to the owner of the house. John Gacy was an upstanding citizen, active in local politics and charities, famous for his themed parties and appearances as Pogo the Clown. But in the winter of 1978–79, he became known as one of many so-called "sex murderers" who had begun gaining notoriety in the random brutality of the 1970s. As public interest grew rapidly, victims became footnotes and statistics, lives lost not just to violence, but to history. Through the testimony of siblings, parents, friends, lovers, and other witnesses close to the case, Boys Enter the House retraces the footsteps of these victims as they make their way to the doorstep of the Gacy house itself.

Download or read book What She Left Behind written by Ellen Marie Wiseman and published by Kensington. This book was released on 2019-08-27 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Half a million copies sold! The breakout novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Orphan Collector, What She Left Behind weaves together riveting stories of past and present, exploring the strength of women in two different times as they face adversity in two very different ways. Go inside the horrifying walls of a 1920s New York asylum as a wrongly imprisoned woman fights for what is most important to her—and meet the young woman confronting the pain and mystery of her own family’s mental illness two generations later. Ten years ago, Izzy Stone’s mother fatally shot her father while he slept. Devastated by her mother’s apparent insanity, Izzy, now seventeen, refuses to visit her in prison. But her new foster parents, employees at the local museum, have enlisted Izzy’s help in cataloging items at a long-shuttered state asylum. There, amid piles of abandoned belongings, Izzy discovers a stack of unopened letters, a decades-old journal, and a window into her own past. Young flapper and suffragette Clara Cartwright is caught between her overbearing parents and her desire to be a modern woman. Furious when she rejects an arranged marriage, instead finding love with an Italian Immigrant, Clara’s father sends her to a genteel home for nervous invalids. But when his fortune is lost in the stock market crash of 1929, he can no longer afford her care—and Clara is committed to the public asylum. Even as Izzy deals with the challenges of yet another new beginning, Clara’s story keeps drawing her into the past. If Clara was never really mentally ill, could something else explain her own mother’s violent act? Piecing together Clara’s fate compels Izzy to re-examine her own choices—with shocking and unexpected results. “Screams with authenticity, depth, and understanding.” —The New York Journal of Books “A real page turner…will appeal to all readers of fiction.” —The Historical Novels Review “Amazing…A great read!” —The San Francisco Book Review “Will both haunt and inspire you… a moving, and at times chilling story that totally endears you to her characters.” —SpaWeek “A great coming-of-age story.” —School Library Journal