PEORIA MAGAZINE January 2023

“For years she lived in a basket of straw cared for solely by other feeble minded patients,” Zeller wrote. “During this time her limbs became drawn up until her knees almost touched her chin. There they remained day after day and week after week until the muscles became atrophied. It was impossible for her to move either her legs or her hips. “After a while the basket of strawwas dispensed with and a square box set on her legs … This box had holes in it so that the excretions would drop into a pan beneath. Mice and other vermin crawled into the box, made their nests and reared their families at the very side of the poor creature. “Under such treatment her malady became more pronounced. With her long fingernails she scratched her eyes out. With her fists she beat her face until all her front teeth had been knocked out. She lost, to a degree, the power of speech … Placed on the floor she hopped along on her hands, so doubled up that she looked more like a toad than a human being.” ONE MORE, BLESSED STOP As part of Illinois’ push towardmental health reform, in 1902 Zeller was named director of the new Illinois Asylum for the Incurable Insane in Bartonville. Told of Derry’s extraordinary case, he traveled to Adams County for a first-hand glimpse. Back at the asylum, he dispatched an official directive to the almshouse: “Send her along. God bless her.” Upon arrival in September 1904, Derry was bathed and set in her own

“The nurses who cared for her in life were at the side of the grave when last honors were paid her,” Zeller wrote. “And, when they returned to their duties, instead of feeling a great burden was lifted from their hands, all were crying. The impression of a humane service, dutifully rendered, has shed its halo about them. And the institution is better for having cared for her. The state is better for the knowledge that justice was finally done this long neglected woman.” ‘THE INSTITUTION IS BETTER FOR HAVING CARED FOR HER. THE STATE IS BETTER ... THAT JUSTICE WAS FINALLY DONE’ — Dr. George Zeller She was laid to rest under a cement marker labeled simply 217. Eighty years later, family put a marble tombstone atop her grave, with an epitaph that would’ve made Zeller proud: “They built this place of asylum so that no other human would suffer as you. You taught us to love and feel compassion toward the less fortunate. May you find peace and warmth in God’s arms.” Some information for this story was provided by 44 Years in Darkness by Sylvia Shults and by the Peoria State Hospital Museum. Phil Luciano is a senior writer/ columnist for Peoria Magazine and content contributor to public television station WTVP

George Zeller was chosen to run the Illinois Asylum for the Incurable Insane when it opened in 1902. Zeller, known as a reformer in mental health care, never shied away from patients deemed “incurable.” Photo courtesy of the Peoria State Hospital Museum bed for the first time in 44 years. Though unable to see or communicate, Derry seemed soothed by the delicate hand of care. “She immediately became the object of solicitude on the part of the nurses and she had never been a moment out of their sight,” Zeller later wrote. “No nurse ever complained because of the demands made upon her time for the caring of Rhody.” Newspapers wrote widely of her extraordinary case. Derry seemed nonplussed by the attention, though she would smile at the sound of Zeller’s voice. When she died on Oct. 9, 1906, one day short of her 72nd birthday, newspapers rehashed her life’s story. One element of her passing seemed to elude those obituaries. Though the asylumhad a profound effect on Rhoda Derry, she returned the favor.

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L O CAL OWNE R S Alison Hammerton and Lesley Vonachen

38 JANUARY 2023 PEORIA MAGAZINE