2026 #52Ancestors, Week 13: A (Crafty) Family Pattern

One of the most meaningful experiences I've had as a mother is dressing my baby in something my grandmother or great grandmother made for me (or sometimes for the generation before me).  My little girl has slept underneath blankets and worn booties, hats, and sweaters crafted with talent and a whole lot of love. I was lucky enough to descend from two talented women - one a knitter and one a crocheter - whose creations have outlasted them.  

Great Grandma Thelma was the crocheter.  She made blankets, bonnets, and booties, but her specialty seems to have been capes.

This one is just the right size for my 10 year old, and she'll be wearing it with this year's Easter dress.  She has already outgrown a smaller one in a similar shade. I am not certain, but the fact that I have two of the same cape in different sizes makes me think they were originally made for my mother and her older sister.  

My Grandma Marilyn (Great Grandma Thelma's daughter) was a talented seamstress and knitter.  Like her mother, she crafted the typical blankets and hats, but the rose-colored sweater she knit for me has stood the the test of time (unlike my hairstyle).

Me, circa 1984

My daughter, 2018

Before my daughter was born, I had dabbled in the yarn arts, but her impending arrival seemed to spark a desire to create.  I stuck to the comparatively easy projects at first - a baby blanket, some booties, and a couple hats. I don't know what led me to believe that I was capable of making her a sweater, but that's what I decided to do for her baptism/1st Easter.

Worn March 2016

Bolstered by the relative success of that project, I have tried to knit or crochet her an item each year.  She has been the recipient of many hats, but this one from Halloween of 2018 is probably one of my favorites. 

My little pumpkin!

Recently, she has started requesting specific toys.  This porg (a Star Wars creature) was my first attempt at a knitted stuffed animal.

I've also crocheted a worm, a snail, and an elephant

I don't pretend to be anywhere near as talented as my grandmother or great grandmother, but I am pleased to be part of our family pattern of yarn creations!

Per my cousin's request, I have added a shawl I crocheted for myself, but I suppose it is likely to eventually end up in my daughter's hands.

2026 #52Ancestors, Week 10: Changed My Thinking

Alfred August Larson was my great great grandmother's (Augusta [Larson] Swanson) brother.  He was born in Sweden and arrived in the United States in 1891.  He married Amanda Josefina Johnson in Chicago, Illinois, in 1897, and they had five children - 3 sons and 2 daughters.  Census records and an obituary indicate he was a carpenter and owned his own business and his own home.  Alfred predeceased his wife of 40+ years, dying June 30th, 1940, at the age of 72. He was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Blue Island, Illinois, surrounded by much of his extended family.  

The Daily Calumet, 1 Jul. 1940, p. 2

He had lived his allotted years with his wife by his side, and they had raised a family in the comfort of a home they owned.  It was a life well-lived. This was my perfunctory assessment of Alfred at any rate.

It wasn't until I took a closer look at his 1940 census that my perspective changed.  Amanda was not with him, and he was not living at his home in Oak Lawn.  Instead, he was an inmate at the Chicago State Insane Hospital.  I knew the mental institutions of that time period were less than ideal, but I didn't know anything about this particular hospital, so I decided to do some digging.

The Chicago State Insane Hospital was originally Dunning Asylum and had been constructed as a combination poor farm and lunatic asylum.  It would eventually expand to include housing for tuberculosis patients.  All this sounds quite...altruistic, but the reality was shocking. Dunning was, according to Challenging Chicago. Coping with Everyday Life, 1837-1920, the equivalent of the boogeyman with parents threatening, "Be careful, or you're going to Dunning." The author of Challenging Chicago, Perry R. Duis, further describes that it was "the most dread place imaginable...gloomy institution walls, the cries of the insane, and the hopeless poor peering from its window."  In name, Dunning Asylum closed on June 30, 1912. Poor farm and tuberculosis inmates were relocated, but the asylum inmates remained in the Chicago State Hospital...which opened on July 1, 1912.

Poor living conditions continued to be an issue, highlighted by a December 1923 fire that killed fifteen people and destroyed two wings of the hospital.  The New York Times article, "12 Lunatics Perish with Three Others in Illinois Asylum; Attendant, His Wife and Child Among Those Trapped in Wooden Structure at Dunning," describes how "The crowding of between 500 and 600 patients into this old wooden structure was declared necessary...the hospital...being taxed to its limits every day by the number of cases sent out by the courts. All the other Illinois hospitals for the insane are also overcrowded. An investigation into these conditions is to be started at once."

Some minor improvements certainly occurred as a result of the investigation, but little headway was made in terms of significant progress.  The image below is from 1947, and shows "the poorly ventilated, narrow, and congested hallways in which some patients slept."

Chicago State Hospital, 1947

Photographer: Chicago Daily News

Source: Chicago Historical Society (ICHi-16073)

According to the Illinois, Deaths and Stillbirths Index, Alfred lived in this institution for 3 months and 1 day in 1940.  I have found no documentation concerning his diagnosis, but I do find it interesting to note that his obituary claimed he died of a stroke at his home in Oak Lawn.  Certainly, there was a stigma attached to being confined to a mental institution, and his family probably preferred not to advertise his 3 months' sojourn there.  More upsetting (to me, at least) are the conditions he had to tolerate during those 3 months.  It certainly changed my assessment of his "life well lived."

Sources:

"12 Lunatics Perish with Three Others in Illinois Asylum; Attendant, His Wife and Child Among Those Trapped in Wooden Structure at Dunning," The New York Times, 27 Dec. 1923, www.nytimes.com/1923/12/27/archives/12-lunatics-perish-with-three-others-in-illinois-asylum-attendant.html. Accessed 8 Mar. 2026.

Duis, Perry R. Challenging Chicago. Coping with Everyday Life, 1837-1920, University of Illinois Press, 1988. 

Perry, Marilyn Elizabeth. "Dunning," Encyclopedia of Chicago, Chicago Historical Society, www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/395.html. Accessed 8 Mar. 2026.