Unidentified Burials for the Mentally Ill

(Originally aired Mar. 13, 2017) Guest: Janina Chilton, Historian for the Utah State Hospital There’s a cemetery just down the road from our studio here in Provo, Utah where 474 unmarked graves contain the remains of patients who died while housed at the Utah Territorial Insane Asylum. They died paupers, and when no families came to claim the bodies, they were buried in graves that have been long since forgotten.  This scenario played out in cemeteries near mental hospitals across the country during the 1800s and early 1900s. Today communities from Minnesota to Mississippi to right here in Provo, Utah, are working to restore some dignity to these forgotten graves. For more information on the Forgotten Patient's Cemetery Project click here.