Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Today is my brother Art's birthday, happy birthday Art and hope you are enjoying your cruise.

Weather wise today was another nice, mainly sunny, day but not as warm as it has been - the high today was 63F (17C) so still not too bad.

We headed out this morning with our first stop at Mr. Dodge to see about getting the oil in the differential changed but when they quoted a price of $29/quart, and it takes 8 quarts, John said thanks but no thanks. John wants to use Amsoil Severe Gear Oil as it is supposed to be the best so we stopped at a few auto parts places to check out the cost and couldn’t find it for less than $22/quart so we gave up on that.

We wanted to check out a couple of the historical sights but the Patee House Museum which looked interesting was closed, open on Saturdays only. Okay, on to the next one which was open, this was the St. Joseph Museum which include the Glore Psychiatric Museum and the Black Archives Museum, it cost us $5 as we had a coupon for one free admittance and it was certainly worth it.

The Glore Psychiatiric Museum was really interesting but my heart bled for any person who was committed to one of these institutions, what torture they put them through. The pictures tell the story.

They had one patient who liked to swallow small objects and when they operated on the person this is what they found (a listing of the contents and a picture). The person died on the operating table.



Hydra Therapy


Restraints



Restraining Chair


Utica Crib


People were kept like this for months or even years at a time


Where the word 'Bedlam" came from


The Pony Express started here in St. Joseph and lasted for all of 18 months. The museum had pictures of all the riders for the express and where they were from and there was one from Prince Edward Island. There was also this fellow, George Washington Perkins, wonder if he was a distant relative!




When we got home John got on the internet to check out the oil for the differential and found a fellow about 15 miles from here who sold it for $11/quart – wow, what a difference. He gave us directions to his place so we headed out to pick it up and then on the way back stopped at Mr. Dodge and made an appointment for Friday morning to have it changed.

This evening is another quiet one, dinner and reading or watching TV.

And so ends another great gift of a day and we look forward to another good tomorrow.

1 comment:

A couple of newer paintings 2019 said...

It would have been awful to have some sort of mental problem back then. Those devices look barbaric! I remember my aunt going through shock treatments for what they called manic depression back in the 50s. Not nice!