Probing the family ‘attic’ for mental illness

Annie’s Ghosts, by Steve Luxenberg, Hyperion Bks, 2009, New York, 401pgs.
By David Strom

SAN DIEGO — In April of 1995, Steve Luxenberg was shocked. His older sister Sashie telephoned and said, “You’re never going to believe this. Did you know that Mom had a sister?”

For forty-three years of Steve’s life his mother, Beth, told her children and friends that she was an only child. In fact, she told Steve’s wife, Mary Jo, on their first meeting that she was an only child and she understood how Mary Jo felt growing up as an only child. Often Beth worked into her conversations when meeting new people that she was an only child. Why would she say this? What did his mother have something too hide?

Steve Luxenberg and his older and younger siblings were perplexed. Should they just confront their mother and ask her directly about her having a sister? Discussing it among themselves and very curious about the unknown aunt, they decided, as a group, not to ask her about the sister. Their curiosity would have to wait.
When Beth became ill in 1995, her doctor wanted her to go into a geriatric psychology ward at Botsford Hospital near Detroit, Michigan. Reluctantly Beth agreed to sign herself in. Once there she quickly learned she wanted “out.” She begged her daughter Sash who refused to listen to her mom’s ranting and pleadings. Then she worked on Steve. She whined, “I can’t stay here.”

Why? What frightened her about Botsford Hospital? Did she think she would never leave there? What?
         
With strong feelings of guilt Steve replied to her desperate pleadings, “Mom, I think you should stay for a few days…”
         
Beth consented and got better, returned to work, drove again, and returned to her life of independence. In September 1998 an automatic sliding door hit her and knocked her down breaking her pelvis. She never regained her strength. Less than a year later, she died.
         
Steve delivered the eulogy at her funeral. Looking out over the mourners and other attendees, he noticed an older women and a man abut his age that he did not know. They left quickly after the funeral service was concluded and so Steve did not get to meet them. None of his siblings knew who the two were.
         
Beth died not knowing that her children knew she had a sister. The investigative side of Steve the journalist took over. He hoped to learn why his mom kept her sister, his aunt, a secret.  He mentally speculated, what might be some of the reasons? What was his aunt’s life like? Was she dead? So many questions and few clear answers.
         
Searching for clues about his “missing” and unknown aunt took Steve back to the year 1917, the year of his mother’s birth. Her parents, Tillie and Hyman Cohen, were recent Jewish immigrants-among millions fleeing Eastern Europe for a chance of a better economic life and escape from religious persecution. Beth’s parents may have physically left Eastern Europe, but they did not leave nor did they want to leave their religious and cultural values behind.
         
Steve’s grandparents moved into the immigrant Jewish ghetto of Detroit. Tillie and Hyman Cohen had two daughters, Annie and Beth. Annie was physically deformed; she had a misshapen leg that made it difficult for her to walk, and she also was mentally challenged. This made Beth, the older sister, somewhat ashamed of Annie. As Annie grew older she became harder and harder to live with. She would scream, fight, and be extremely out of control. It was not an easy time of life for the Cohen family.
         
Annie had her leg surgically removed when she was seventeen years old; in 1940, at the age of twenty-one, she was admitted into Eloise Hospital. She remained institutionalized at Eloise over thirty years. Prior to her death in January 1972, Annie was transferred to a nursing home in Northville, Michigan. Annie died there on August 7, 1972.
         
Who buried Annie? Did she have a ritual Jewish funeral? Was she buried at Eloise? Or was she buried in a Jewish cemetery?
         
“In 1940, at the time of Annie’s admission, Eloise was a sprawling complex with more than nine thousand residents (not all of them mentally ill)…as well as its own police force and fire department, a farm, a dairy, a cannery, and even a piggery. This was the grand age of massive public hospitals….” Steve learned, in his search for his aunt Annie, that many in the Detroit Jewish community of the thirties and forties, and possibly even today, thought it a great “shandah’ (disgrace) to have a relative at Eloise. The resident at Eloise must be crazy and what about you?
         
Steve wondered if this was one reason his mother never told her children about having a sister. Did Beth inform her husband about Annie? Wouldn’t that spoil her chances of marrying if she told him before they were married? What about the neighbors who saw and lived next door to the Cohens, wouldn’t they know about Annie? And wouldn’t they talk? So how could she keep it a secret from her children? Did the women Beth played cards with, celebrated anniversaries and birthdays with, did they know?
         
And who were those two people at mom’s funeral? Why were they there? Were they relatives or what?

Eventually he met them, and they were relatives. Anna Oliwek was a cousin to Beth. She survived the Holocaust and moved to Detroit in 1949. She learned that Beth had a sister living at Eloise that she never talked about or visited. Anna discussed this issue with Beth. Beth insisted and told Anna ‘it was really not her business.” Anna pointed out that Annie was her cousin and she had every right to meet her. She had survived the war laboring for the Nazis, saw terrible things happen to innocent people, of course hiding her Jewishness, and was thus a strong willed person. Anna thought it cowardly of Beth not to visit her own sister at Eloise; and she told her so. That ended their relationship, immediately.          
With the aid of Anna who drove, Tillie Cohen visited her daughter at Eloise periodically. She visited as long as she was physically able; her visits with Annie ended when Anna moved to Chicago. Hyman, the father, couldn’t get enough strength to visit Annie even once.

Today, places like Eloise are not being built. The treatment of mentally challenged people has made some progress. With the use of medicines and advancements in psychological thinking, and better understanding by the public at large Annie would probably not be placed in a mental institution. People like Annie might even have jobs and live independently. Yes, progress in this area of life has been made.
         
Steve Luxenberg in his search for Annie discovered at the office of the Detroit Jewish News the microfilm of August 11, 1972 which read: “Annie Cohen, 3378 Richton, died August 7. Survived by one sister.” His mother had let the secret out, but secretly. No name for the surviving sister (how ironic), yet a name for the deceased.
         
Steve Luxenberg’s book reads like an unfolding detective novel, only better.
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Strom is professor emeritus of education at San Diego State University.  He may be contacted via david.strom@sdjewishworld.com