The Edge of Madness:Unraveling the Mystery of Bertha McKinney

Andrew Jackson SURBER married Mary E HINMON 02 Oct 1879 in Polk Township, Bremer
County, Iowa. From that union, four children were born: Ira Franklin (1880), George Richard (1882), Ray Andrew (1887) and Guy Arnold “Bud” (1888).

Left: Andrew Jackson Surber; Center: Mary Hinmon Surber; Right: Surber Children

Guy Arnold Surber (Left)

Mary left the family sometime in the mid-1890s. In 1900, Ira had relocated to South Dakota, George headed West, Ray was being raised by, but never formally adopted by the James Furnoy family (he later went by their last name), and Guy was serving time in the Eldora State Training School for Boys (a place to reform youthful offenders and educate them) in Hardin County, Iowa. It seems the loss of their mother was hard on her children.

Guy left the reformatory at some point and joined the Army at age 25 in 1910. He married Bertha Viola McKinney who was born in Penfield, Champaign, Illinois on 29 Jun 1887. Guy was a musician and had joined the Army band. He served an entire career in service and seemed to thrive in that environment.

He and Bertha had two children: Marijune (1921) and Guy A, Jr (1923). In 1930, the Surber’s were renting a home in Richfield, Minnesota near the local army post and hospital. In 1940, he had attained the rank of Master Sergeant and was still in service and stationed at Fort Amado, Panama Canal. In 1942 at the time of his death, he resided in Los Angeles, California.

Bertha McKinney Surber

According to the 1940 Census, Bertha was living at the Cherokee State Hospital in Cherokee, IA and classified as “insane” in 1940. She died at age 60 in 1948 while still residing there. The cause of her institutionalization is not known – I hope to sort it out in the coming weeks. What caused her hospitalization? Was she mad?
Peri-Menopausal? A drunk? Epileptic? The only way to find out is to petition for her medical records.

As early as 1890, a movement was begun to build a fourth mental hospital in the state and northwest Iowa was the logical location for it. The plan was to relieve crowding from the other hospitals in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, Clarinda, Iowa, Independence, Iowa, In 1894, Cherokee residents started an active campaign to get the legislature to select their city for the new hospital. It took 14 ballots in the legislature to give Cherokee the hospital. The legislature appropriated $12,000 to purchase a site, but it was 6½ years after the first excavation before the administration building, sitting on bare prairie land, was ready for occupancy. There was a struggle each session of the legislature to get appropriations to continue with the building. The original plan for patients was to hold alcoholics, geriactrics, drug addicts, the mentally-ill, and the criminally-insane.1
The facility in Cherokee is a Kirkbride buildings are named after Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride, a nineteenth-century physician and asylum superintendent who authored a treatise on hospital design. This treatise and Dr. Kirkbride's other work had a far-reaching influence on the construction of American insane asylums through much of the latter half of the nineteenth century. Kirkbride buildings are most recognizably characterized by their somewhat unique "bat wing" floorplan and their often lavish Victorian-era architecture. Their design was an attempt at creating a space to facilitate the return to sanity. The buildings were conceived by Dr. Kirkbride and his contemporaries as active participants in treating the mentally ill.2  The hospital was opened for patients on August 15, 1902 under the name Cherokee Lunatic Asylum. The name changed several times over the years, going from Iowa Lunatic Asylum to Cherokee State Hospital. From August 15 to August 26, eight patients were admitted. On August 26, 1902, 306 patients were transferred from Independence and two days later 252 from Clarinda. These patients were brought by special trains and met with teams and hayracks at the end of the Illinois Central Railroad spur and transported to the hospital. Beginning with about 600 patients, the hospital population increased year by year until the peak was reached in December 1945 with a total patient census/population of 1,729, beds in every hall and every building being overtaxed. Then began the gradual campaign to send patients who had reached maximum hospital benefits back to their own counties. Initially, social workers found placements for the mentally-retarded and the indigent in the community and at the "county farms". With the discovery of psychotropic drugs in the 1950s, the push for getting rid of restraints, community-based services and the establishment of Mental Health Centers in the 1960s, the massive asylum census continued its decline. 

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_Mental_Health_Institute
2 http://www.kirkbridebuildings.com/about/