Sane man lived his whole life in insane asylum
By AmberLynn
@ScribbledAdNauseum (104615)
United States
October 7, 2019 4:15pm CST
People in "olden days' were susceptible to believing just about anything. Many women believed, or were encouraged to believe, that things that happened to them in their pregnancies could somehow imprint itself on the child.
Darthula Buckner was one such lady. She saw a blindman by the name of Blind Boone while she was pregnant with her son Mayo Buckner.
She was frightened by the sight of the blind man's eyes and how they rolled. Well, eight years go by and her son starts to roll his eyes as well. He also is a shy boy and eats his food fast. These are all valid reasons, in Darthula's opinion, for sending him to the Iowa home for Feeble-Minded Children.
The boy arrived and an official of the Home declared the boy "Medium Grade Imbecile." This man was not a doctor, but his word meant that poor Mayo must stay.
Years go by and he begins to tell his doctors that he feels sane. None of them listened to him and often said he was feeble minded.
It wasn't until a new superintendent arrived that the man was listened to. The superintendent had Mayo's IQ tested and found that not only was he quite sane, he was quite intelligent to! His IQ was 120. He was free to go but by this time he was 67 years old and had nowhere to go and so he stayed.
He was featured in Life Magazine in March of 1958 and died in 1965.
8 people like this
8 responses
@ScribbledAdNauseum (104615)
• United States
8 Oct 19
It's possible that he even had siblings that knew nothing of him. Siblings that had they known of him could have offered him a place to live in his later years.
1 person likes this
@kobesbuddy (78833)
• East Tawas, Michigan
7 Oct 19
Good grief, his mother was such an idiot, making her son live in a home for the insane!
1 person likes this
@ScribbledAdNauseum (104615)
• United States
8 Oct 19
I feel so sorry for the man but I cant' fault the mother. I mean, I agree it was awful of her to do this but it's the way a lot of people believed back then, atleast from what I've come across.
I think he lived an okay life either way, even if it was a lonely one with no family around.
1 person likes this
@ScribbledAdNauseum (104615)
• United States
8 Oct 19
@kobesbuddy Yes and that is truly sad. Men thought themselves to be the superior but us women knew that truly we were more superior, even if we werent' always able to show our superiority.
1 person likes this
@kobesbuddy (78833)
• East Tawas, Michigan
8 Oct 19
@ScribbledAdNauseum Back then, women weren't allowed to make certain decisions. They were in most cases, dominated by men.
@sweetashoney (3597)
• United States
7 Oct 19
That is sad, I guess people believed in a lot of crazy things back then, I think some people still do. I just hope that he was abused like like some children were in those places back then. I know I read about one place were they finally shut it down because of the abuse that had taken place.
@ScribbledAdNauseum (104615)
• United States
8 Oct 19
It wasn't just the children that were abused in these types of institutions. The article I read on this man never went into detail about where he was. I am thinking it must have been a step down from an insane asylum, but I wonder if it was anything like the workhouses of England? It makes me wonder how he was able to stay until adulthood and beyond.
@sweetashoney (3597)
• United States
8 Oct 19
@ScribbledAdNauseum It does make you wonder, if that was now a days, they probley would have put him on the streets when turned at the most maybe 20 years old.
1 person likes this
@ScribbledAdNauseum (104615)
• United States
8 Oct 19
@sweetashoney The closest thing to an institution like this that I know of is the foster care system and group homes. They are heavily regulated now and I am sure that most are kicked out by the age of 18 to make room for others.
The more I think of this case the sadder it seems to me. It was 1890 when this man was born. Yes, it was still a different time but i would have thought people were more educated then and less likely to believe such poppycock. I am sure the man the woman saw was nothing more than a man trying to survive in a world where social systems to take care of him were not yet in place.
The poor blind man could have been having a seizure. Her 8 year old boy was doing what all children do, being children.
Sorry, I went on a bit of a tangent there. 
@Hannihar (130150)
• Israel
8 Oct 19
@ScribbledAdNauseum
That is so so sad that a sane man with a high IQ was put in an insane asylum and was free to leave at the age of 67.
1 person likes this
@Hannihar (130150)
• Israel
10 Oct 19
@ScribbledAdNauseum
That is very sad and here he was not insane at all. I can imagine how it felt for him being in there with all those insane people probably yelling and screaming all the time.
@Hannihar (130150)
• Israel
8 Oct 19
@ScribbledAdNauseum
That is too bad. That really is very sad.
2 people like this
@ScribbledAdNauseum (104615)
• United States
7 Oct 19
Yes I think it is sad as well, but then he really did know no other life. He was only 8 when his mother abandoned him like she did, and honestly he may have lived a better life in the home. I do not know whether he had to undergo the same types of treatments as other patients, but I imagine not since he wouldn't have exhibited any outlandish behavior.
1 person likes this
@CarolDM (203396)
• Nashville, Tennessee
7 Oct 19
@ScribbledAdNauseum That is the sad part, his life was taken away.
@ScribbledAdNauseum (104615)
• United States
8 Oct 19
@CarolDM I would like to find the Life magazine article on him if I can just because I want to know more. I assume he never knew of any family. The mother could have had more children that he never knew and whom never knew of him.
1 person likes this
@Nakitakona (59987)
• Philippines
8 Oct 19
So sad. It's terrible. Mayo hasn't enjoyed his normal life to its fullest and didn't have a family of his own.
@ScribbledAdNauseum (104615)
• United States
8 Oct 19
Yes, I can't help but wonder if his mother had more children. It's possible that she did and that his siblings knew nothing of him and he nothing of them. I can't help but think that if he had siblings he could have enjoyed their company in his later years.
1 person likes this
@ScribbledAdNauseum (104615)
• United States
8 Oct 19
@Nakitakona I read the Life Magazine article and it told of how Mayo was left at the home for feeble-minded children. His mother told him they were going on a trip, but he noticed that she did not secure a return ticket for him. He was left at the place, and while he was only struck (hit) once or twice, he was still abused in a far worse way by the emotional scar his mother's abandonment would have left on him.
Apparently the mother had gotten the advice of the family doctor and all I can say is that doctor was a quack!
1 person likes this
@Nakitakona (59987)
• Philippines
8 Oct 19
@ScribbledAdNauseum Mayo has been totally neglected by his mother for he's weird. And it shouldn't be. She relied on baseless belief or presumption.
@Porcospino (31365)
• Denmark
7 Oct 19
It is a interesting story and very sad too. Similar things happened in my country. Some of the people who ended up in the asylums definitely didn't belong there. I have a book that contains some of their stories.
@Porcospino (31365)
• Denmark
8 Oct 19
@ScribbledAdNauseum That is really sad. Unfortunately things like that happened at that time. I remember a story from one of our asylums. A woman got married and the man wanted to get rid of the woman's daughter from a previous relationship. She was placed in an asylum, but she wasn't ill or disabled at all.
@ScribbledAdNauseum (104615)
• United States
8 Oct 19
@Porcospino That is terrible! The poor girl and how bad of that man. I think some women might have also been sent to become a nun for the same or similar reasons.
@ScribbledAdNauseum (104615)
• United States
8 Oct 19
I've seen lists on the internet that are supposed to be reasons why a person was admitted to an asylum. If true, it seems that a lot of people were admitted for reasons we would find stupid today. The saddest reason I've come across is when a man puts his own mother into a home because he gets married.
1 person likes this
@Nevena83 (66063)
• Serbia
7 Oct 19
Here too, women often believe in various things when they are pregnant.
@ScribbledAdNauseum (104615)
• United States
8 Oct 19
It doesn't surprise me that women might think some odd things during their pregnancies but I would hope that today the majority of women would realize that the things they think aren't necessarily true. Back then the education system was different.
1 person likes this
@Nevena83 (66063)
• Serbia
8 Oct 19
@ScribbledAdNauseum Yes, you are right. But sometimes women relate experiences that are true, and I think that's why beliefs live long.
1 person likes this
@ScribbledAdNauseum (104615)
• United States
8 Oct 19
@Nevena83 Yes, you are right. Then there is also the matter where a mother might tell her pregnant daughter about an old wives tale and the woman believes it because perhaps it was said to have happened to her great grandmother.
1 person likes this
