99: Elizabeth Packard

Kathryn (00:12)

We're gonna it right now. Hello, welcome to I Scream You Scream, your weekly scoop of the most chilling histories, mysteries, and paranormal perplexities. Shout out to everyone who's joined us on Patreon thus far on our brand new tier, where you can get our episodes ad-free and one week early. Go on over to Patreon if you would like to join the rest of the crew. I forgot to say my name. My name's Kathryn.

Gina (00:40)

I'm Gina.

Kathryn (00:42)

And once you join us over on Patreon, you will learn that this month we are talking about hospitals while we enjoy vanilla flavored ice cream. So go ahead and grab a spoon so we can dig in.

Gosh, I feel like every single dish I have the honey in this honey vanilla gets like stronger and stronger.

Gina (01:04)

Ooh, do you like that or dislike it?

Kathryn (01:07)

Yeah, I love honey. This is so good.

Gina (01:08)

Yeah. You're a honey girl. Mm-hmm.

I thought that honey would be a really cute name for a cat.

Kathryn (01:14)

yeah? And why were you thinking of cat names, Gina?

Gina (01:20)

Yeah.

The exciting news, from the Gina and Tom household is that we got a new cat. We got a little cat. A cute little fluffy

Kathryn (01:27)

Yay. God, she's so cute.

Gina (01:30)

black cat. She's adorable. I'll put a picture of her in the video. Her name's Willow.

Kathryn (01:34)

You have a little black cat and a little white cat.

Gina (01:36)

yeah, they're little little fluffy twins, but opposite, like yin and yang. She's very affectionate, very sweet, already

Kathryn (01:40)

Yeah. Aww

Gina (01:43)

very cuddly. She's only been with us for two days, but she headbutts with like the force of a siege weapon. It's insane.

Kathryn (01:49)

My God, that's what cinnamon does.

Gina (01:51)

I had to take my engagement ring off because I was like, she's gonna impale herself on this ring.

Kathryn (01:56)

Honestly, that's the best way to get her to learn. I just let cinnamon hurt herself on my rings.

Gina (01:59)

Ooh, and

your wing your ring's dangerous too. That's a

weapon in its own right.

Kathryn (02:06)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I hurt myself

with my ring all the time.

Gina (02:11)

Didn't

realize that engagement rings were so multi purpose.

Kathryn (02:14)

Yeah, it's self-defense.

No, I'm obsessed with Willow. She's so cute. Equally obsessed with Roux's reaction to Willow. We I'm we

Gina (02:25)

my god.

Kathryn (02:25)

also have to share that picture you sent me. I laughed

Gina (02:27)

Ha ha ha.

Kathryn (02:28)

so hard. like, wow, that's definitely Gina's cat. She's

Gina (02:32)

Ha ha ha.

Kathryn (02:33)

so cute. How has she been doing?

Gina (02:36)

she's okay Roux's okay. She knows something

Kathryn (02:39)

Okay.

Gina (02:39)

is up. She hasn't seemed like angry or hissing or anything like that. She just keeps going to Willow's door and sitting in front

Kathryn (02:43)

That's good. Mm-hmm.

Gina (02:46)

of it and just staring at it. Nonstop. But it's not an angry stare. Like it's her curious, I wanna know what's behind that door because I'm not allowed to go in there, but I can hear things

Kathryn (02:55)

Yeah.

Gina (02:56)

kinda look.

Kathryn (02:57)

She definitely looks so curious in that picture. She's like, what is what is happening? What's going on in there? Let me in. So cute.

Gina (03:05)

Yeah. It's really funny.

Yeah, but they haven't seen each other yet. It'll be at least another few days before we left. They they both seem keen on it,

Kathryn (03:13)

Yeah.

Gina (03:13)

but I don't trust either of them really,

but we'll get there. And then

Kathryn (03:16)

So cute.

Gina (03:17)

I'll start amassing my army. I have other exciting animal news actually that I can share.

Kathryn (03:22)

my god, okay.

Gina (03:23)

So, as you know, my mom works at a zoo, and when we visit them for Thanksgiving this year, she is going to get us in on a Galapagos tortoise experience.

Kathryn (03:34)

No.

Gina (03:36)

Yeah.

Kathryn (03:36)

Wait,

that's so fun. You've got the connect. That's like

Gina (03:40)

Uh-huh. Dude, I got the connect.

Kathryn (03:43)

honestly, not to be dramatic, but that is one of the coolest things. You always gotta have a collection

Gina (03:49)

It's so cool.

Kathryn (03:50)

of connections, right? Like

Gina (03:52)

Mm.

Kathryn (03:53)

you gotta you gotta know a lawyer. You gotta know someone with a beach house somewhere.

You gotta know you know what I mean? You need to know a certain

Gina (03:57)

yeah. Uh-huh.

Kathryn (04:01)

types of people. A zoo connect is like creme de la creme. Like no one ever talks about having a zoo

connect.

Gina (04:09)

because it's like a nice to have like I think the necessary connects

Kathryn (04:11)

Yeah.

Gina (04:12)

are like if you can, you gotta know a lawyer. You gotta know someone like in a medical field so that if you like bang your head on something, you can send them a picture and

Kathryn (04:19)

Yeah. Yep.

Gina (04:21)

they can tell you whether or not it's emergency room worthy. You gotta have like some kind of coffee or retail connect. You're you're my retail connect, yeah, because you can get me books. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Kathryn (04:29)

Ooh, yeah. I know I'm a l I'm love being a re a book retail connect. It's I have I

hear I hear from people a lot more often than I used to, I'll tell you that much. I wanna say someone at like an accountant is nice to have.

Yeah. Yeah.

Gina (04:45)

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Like a money someone who understands money and the way that that all works. But a

zoo connect is so unnecessary but wonderful. It's very nice, I will say.

Kathryn (04:56)

That's like childhood

dream connect. Like,

Gina (04:59)

Yeah.

Kathryn (05:00)

cause who works at a zoo? Not that many people.

Gina (05:03)

Right? Yeah, and it's a good zoo, the one my mom works at. I told her that

Kathryn (05:06)

Yeah.

Gina (05:07)

so for the Galapagos tortoise encounter, I get to watch during a training session with it. And I'm pretty sure I get to participate a little bit and like maybe pet the tortoise. And so I told I did tell my mom I'm gonna train it to attack and that I will be raising an army of attack tortoises. And I think that image

Kathryn (05:22)

Of course.

Gina (05:23)

is so fun. Just like thousands of Galapagos tortoises slowly moving their way.

Kathryn (05:28)

I'm imagining I'm imagining

like the video of not the video like there's only one in the world but like when you see all the little baby turtles hatching and going out to sea I'm imagining that but like they're trying to kill Yes Yeah

Gina (05:46)

Yes. W on a path to vengeance is where they're going. Hell

Kathryn (05:53)

Yeah, excellent,

Gina (05:53)

yeah.

Kathryn (05:54)

excellent.

Gina (05:55)

Here to raise some shell, know what I mean?

Kathryn (05:59)

my god. Okay. Wow.

Gina (06:00)

Ha ha ha.

Kathryn (06:01)

Thanks for joining us everyone. like and subscribe. Leave a review wherever you listen, that's literally not gonna get better than that, no matter what.

Gina (06:10)

Hey Kathryn

Kathryn (06:12)

Yes.

Gina (06:14)

what what kind of pants does a paranormal investigator wear?

Kathryn (06:18)

well, hold on. The punchline's a paranormal jeans, isn't it? You did it wrong.

Gina (06:23)

Yeah. I know, I know.

I was hoping you wouldn't notice.

Kathryn (06:29)

Sure I sent that to you. Where did you see that?

Gina (06:34)

saying it to everyone. I can't remember it's

Kathryn (06:36)

I said.

Gina (06:37)

so funny.

Gone full circle.

Kathryn (06:43)

God, that's so funny for so many reasons. I'm like 90% Wait, no, maybe I didn't. I think I told Phil that joke and he didn't think it was that funny. Sorry, man, that joke is like over two as far as like I've been involved with it. I'm sorry. Sorry for ruining that joke.

All right, before I ruin any more of your jokes Do

you have a story you would like to tell me?

Gina (07:11)

do have a story. Today I'm going to be telling you about a woman who was thrown into an asylum because she dared to disagree with her husband.

Kathryn (07:23)

We would never can you imagine? The audacity

Gina (07:22)

Mm-hmm. Imagine me disagreeing with my husband. I don't

the sheer gall.

Kathryn (07:33)

Scandalous.

Gina (07:36)

she didn't agree with us, this woman.

Kathryn (07:38)

Ha

Gina (07:39)

And instead of this experience breaking her, it wound up emboldening her and it set her on a path of revenge, advocacy, and activism.

That fundamentally changed both mental health treatment and women's rights in America. It is the story of Elizabeth Packard. Are you familiar with Elizabeth Packard?

Kathryn (07:59)

Yay.

I I am, but I'm like gonna learn a lot today. Like I know the name, I know the general concept of what happened, but I don't know the story from like start to finish. So I'm I'm very much looking forward to this one. Mm-hmm. fun.

Gina (08:14)

Okay. Good. See, I had no idea who she was until I started researching this,

and it's an amazing story. Before I

dive into it, just a heads up, today's episode is gonna contain descriptions of patient abuse, spousal abuse, forced confinement, sexism and misogyny, and drug use.

I'm also gonna be using quite a lot of antiquated terms that carry a negative connotation today, and I'm just using them because it's what they used back then.

So Elizabeth was born in Massachusetts on December twenty eighth, eighteen sixteen. She's a Capricorn queen. I looked it up this time. Mm-hmm. And

Kathryn (08:53)

Wow.

Gina (08:56)

she was born into a pretty religious family. Her dad was a minister. She went to school at a seminary where she received a really good education. In fact, she would later say that she received the same education as her younger brothers, which was a pretty big deal.

Given the time period. So she was a very educated young woman coming into her womanhood, this bright and shining star, top marks, top of the class. She winds up leaving school at 16 to become a teacher, and she was fantastic at it. But when she was 19, everything kind of ground to a halt because she got really, really sick. She started getting these awful headaches, and she would get confused and kind of delusional at times.

And doctors tried to figure out what was going on, so of course they did some good old-fashioned bloodletting, and they made her throw up a few times, because that was the the pe pinnacle of medical treatment back then.

Kathryn (09:49)

Sure. Yeah.

Gina (09:51)

but she wasn't getting any better. And so the doctors said, Well, if taking her blood and making her vomit isn't helping her improve, it must be because she's insane. So her father had her admitted to an insane asylum.

They said that the cause of her insanity was, quote, mental labor, which basically means that she had too many thoughts

Kathryn (10:12)

Great.

Gina (10:13)

and it broke her brain. And like, I it sounds like to some people it might sound like I'm exaggerating. I'm not exaggerating. Like it literally was she had too many thoughts. This was a time period when women got thrown into asylums for reading too many books. It's a documented historical fact.

Kathryn (10:27)

Yeah.

Gina (10:28)

These days, we think that Elizabeth actually had meningitis, which can be very serious and very dangerous. Yeah. Somehow

Kathryn (10:35)

my god

Gina (10:38)

she managed to recover, and after six weeks in the asylum, she was released and allowed to go home. Elizabeth never fully forgave her father for this, and she also never fully forgave the doctors for their lack of help.

Because she was convinced that the quote treatment that she received had nothing to do at all with her recovery, and that she just needed some time to feel better. And these days we're pretty confident that she was a hundred percent right. And so at this age in her late teens, is when her distrust of the American medical system started to take shape.

A few years passed, Elizabeth was doing really well, and when she hit her early twenties, her parents decided that she needed to get married. And luckily, they already had someone in mind. Theophilus Packard, a Calvinist minister and colleague of her father's.

Kathryn (11:28)

I'm sorry, who?

Gina (11:30)

Theophilus.

Kathryn (11:32)

Theophilus or Tholus? Theophilus? Okay.

Gina (11:35)

Theophilus like a Phil with a theo and an us.

Kathryn (11:44)

It's that's is that that sounds like a Greek god or something.

Gina (11:49)

You know what, I should've looked up where this name comes from and I didn't.

Kathryn (11:51)

I'm just curio that's

phenomenal. I'm like dying to know where that name comes from. It's like I think it's because it kinda sounds like what's it called? The what's the no fuck, what's it called? my god, I can't say this without sounding them.

Gina (12:08)

Can you describe it?

Kathryn (12:10)

It's Greek.

it's a place. Cropolips. Do you know what I'm trying to say?

Gina (12:16)

The Acropolis.

I'm so sorry. It just caught me off

Kathryn (12:26)

Yeah Acropolis,

yeah. That's what it

Gina (12:33)

fair and it does. I do I wonder if it's a religious name. I d yeah, okay, okay. So

Kathryn (12:33)

Alright Probably

yeah, probably.

Gina (12:40)

It would make sense, yeah. He was a very Christian guy, and I mean so

Kathryn (12:43)

Yeah.

Gina (12:43)

was Elizabeth and the rest of her family, and she knew that it was her Christian duty to become a wife and a mother. She figured this Theophilus guy was as good a choice as any, and so she was like, fine, I'll marry him, it'll make my dad happy. And they were married when she was twenty-two, and he was thirty-seven. So there was a fourteen and a bit year age gap between them.

And on top of that, they were very, very different people. Elizabeth was kind of an electric person. She was very charismatic. She was really social. She was great at conversations. Meanwhile, Theophilus, by his own description, was quote, gloomy and dull.

Kathryn (13:28)

Right, so I was feeling a little bad for making fun of his name, but now I don't.

Gina (13:33)

no, we hate Theophilus a

Kathryn (13:34)

Okay.

Gina (13:34)

lot. Fuck this guy.

Kathryn (13:36)

Yeah, that's such a weird way to describe yourself.

Gina (13:39)

I know.

Kathryn (13:42)

I'm gloomy and dull.

Gina (13:44)

And his job is public speaking and he chose this job.

Kathryn (13:47)

Yeah, when I think of a minister, I think of like like you're a preacher. That's a very

Gina (13:52)

Yeah.

Kathryn (13:53)

specific skill that really can I mean it can be taught, but that really is you gotta have that certain something, you know? Yeah. Damn.

Gina (14:03)

You gotta have a thing, a something something. Yeah. And he didn't

really have that. And that will come back into play in just a little bit. But first I'm gonna

Kathryn (14:11)

Okay.

Gina (14:12)

tell you about their their kids. Because they did wind up having kids. they had six of them, actually. Despite it being a passionless marriage, they had six kids. So, you know, God is good or whatever. They had five boys and one girl. Their oldest son was named Theophilus as well, but his nickname was Toffee.

Which I think is so cute.

Kathryn (14:33)

That is so talk about a good name for a cat. That'd be a good one. Yeah.

Gina (14:36)

Toffee? Toffee's a great

name for it. my god, that's really cute. I like that.

Kathryn (14:41)

Yeah.

Gina (14:42)

Guess I gotta get another cat. Sorry, Tom.

Kathryn (14:43)

I know.

Gina (14:47)

So yeah, they had six kids, and Elizabeth was an excellent mother. She loved having kids and she loved taking care of them. Something I think is really fun is that she had a behavior chart for her kids, and that's not a novel concept, but I had never thought about that in like the 1850s.

Kathryn (15:07)

That's what I was I was just gonna say that. I know it's not a novel concept, but my reaction to you saying that is I feel like it may have been then, right? Maybe not.

Gina (15:15)

I don't know.

I don't I don't know when behavior charts were invented. I just I'd assumed

Kathryn (15:19)

Yeah.

Gina (15:20)

that they just existed outside of time and space. I didn't think about them existing in history, certainly. Like, I don't know. But yeah, she had a

Kathryn (15:27)

Yeah. That's interesting. I like that.

Gina (15:30)

behavior chart where she would give you would get points if you did something good, like if you did a chore without needing to be asked or something like that. But if you did something bad, you got six points taken away.

And then if you got and if you accumulated enough points, every kid had like a different personalized prize that was based on like their interests and their age and who they were as kids and stuff like that. So it seems like a pretty good system. Yeah, I love that too.

Kathryn (15:52)

I love that. Yeah.

Gina (15:56)

And from the very beginning of their marriage, Theophilus was extremely controlling towards Elizabeth.

And at first in the early years, she didn't really mind it too much, and her reasoning behind that was like, well, he's 14 years older than me. He knows more than I do. His opinions have had more time to mature. So when we disagree, it makes sense that I should always let him win. That was kind of where her mind was at. But it didn't last forever. In the first couple decades of their marriage, they moved around quite a lot, like they would go from one spot to another looking for a congregation for Theophilus.

And it became a bit of a cycle they would get somewhere, Theophilus would like try to establish himself as a minister there, and the congregation wouldn't like him, so they would have to pick up and move somewhere else.

Kathryn (16:45)

Yeah, okay, this matches your description of him as a minister.

Gina (16:49)

Yeah.

Yep. And throughout all of that moving, Elizabeth met lots of people who were outside her sphere of religious influence. And she started learning about perspectives on theology and philosophy that she had just never heard before. Like the idea that instead of God being like this tyrannical punishment-based guy that she knew him as, God could be love and forgiveness, which was fundamentally different.

From what Theophilus believed, but it was also fundamentally different from the way she was raised. It was kind of like a whole new world of thought for her. And on top of that, at that time, kind of like the 1840s and 50s, there was a growing national dialogue about women's rights. And just to like paint the legal context of this era, so at this time, women couldn't own property, they couldn't enter into contracts.

and if they did have a job, they had to give their entire salary to their husband. Like this is very much the time period when women were property and you belonged to your husband. But there were all these ideas floating around that maybe things didn't have to be that way. And maybe women were just as much a part of society as men were, and just maybe wives didn't have to conform to their husband's wishes all the time.

because they were their own unique people who were allowed to have unique thoughts and opinions. Absolute Balderdash is what Theophilus thought. He did not agree.

Kathryn (18:15)

Wild

Talk about crazy.

Gina (18:19)

Right, exactly. Asylum offense. So while Theophilus is running around being this like shitty minister that no one liked, Elizabeth was experiencing this like revolution of self when she was in kind of her 30s and 40s. And she started realizing that not only did her husband not know better than her all of the time, but that she was capable of standing up to him. And that when they did start debating about her beliefs, she always won. Which was

Incredibly reaffirming to her that not only was she an intellectual equal to Theophilus, but that she surpassed him in a lot of ways. And this, of course, enraged Theophilus. He started writing in his diary that he thought that because of her opinions on women's rights, his wife was going insane. By this point, they had moved to Manteno Illinois, which I had never heard of before, and it's actually not.

Far from Chicago at all. It's like less than an hour south.

Kathryn (19:15)

I was gonna ask you, what? Like directly

Gina (19:18)

Mm-hmm.

Kathryn (19:18)

south? Is it on kinda east side?

Gina (19:21)

Maybe south, maybe a little bit west. Yeah. Yeah.

Kathryn (19:24)

F that's like where I grew up. Well,

an hour no, I'm further I was further from that. Never heard of that.

Gina (19:29)

I I just assumed

it would like all the way southern Illinois, but it's not. It was like pretty pretty close to Chicago. Anyway.

Kathryn (19:34)

Hmm, weird.

Gina (19:38)

So they moved to Manteno, Illinois. And at this point, I think their oldest kid was in his late teens. Their youngest was like a little itty bitty baby. And Theophilus had found a congregation that liked him wild. So they decided to grow some roots there. They were gonna stay there for a bit.

Elizabeth started bringing up all of these ideas of hers in their social circles, and specifically at their Bible study group. And to stop her from being taken seriously, Theophilus started telling everyone that his wife was, quote, deranged and had a diseased brain.

Kathryn (20:12)

Okay, I'm like

I'm very upset right now.

Gina (20:16)

It's a very

rage episode, but we will feel better at the end, I promise.

Kathryn (20:22)

Okay.

Gina (20:23)

It is bullshit though. Like he completely refused to actually critically engage with any of the points she was making, and he just wrote her off as a crazy and hysterical woman, which we still see today, but it's just so fucking

annoying

Kathryn (20:33)

That's

Gina (20:33)

every time.

Kathryn (20:34)

that's what's getting me because there's like I made the mistake of continuing to watch true crime documentaries because I can't stop. And there is one that is like, this literally just happened. This is like happening now. Like It's literally this like minister.

is preaching

Gina (20:53)

Hmm.

Kathryn (20:54)

about how crazy his wife is because he's like abusing her. Doesn't want people to know. Yeah. Literally. This

Gina (20:59)

mm, mm. Ya.

Kathryn (21:00)

happened as re it was like two years ago.

Gina (21:04)

I'm not gonna lie, when I was researching this, I did cry a few times at how little has changed. But in the way

Kathryn (21:08)

Yeah.

Gina (21:09)

that so much does change because of Elizabeth Packard. Well yeah.

Kathryn (21:14)

Yeah, which is valuable and

like worth worth being happy about. It's just like Okay, keep going.

Gina (21:24)

We're literally

on page two of my notes. All right.

Kathryn (21:27)

Okay.

Gina (21:29)

So he started telling everyone that, don't listen to her, she's just crazy. And his parishioners listened to him because he was their religious leader, and Elizabeth was saying all these things that didn't align with their belief system, so she must be crazy. But Elizabeth, who knew that they were saying these things, refused to be quiet. Her perspective was

I'll speak how I want to and when I want to, and if you disagree with what I'm saying, you're welcome to present logical counterpoints. It's just that no one ever did. These tensions escalated and escalated, with neither Theophilus nor Elizabeth willing to back down, and in May 1860, she formally left her husband's congregation. a very big, big deal. That

Kathryn (22:14)

Yeah. Yeah.

Gina (22:16)

same month,

Theophilus convinced 39 members of his church to sign a petition to put Elizabeth in an asylum as quickly as possible. He also held like a mock trial at their house where he invited a bunch of them over to vote on whether they thought she was crazy.

Kathryn (22:33)

What a geek.

Gina (22:34)

Yeah. Mm-hmm. What a weakling. What a worm.

Kathryn (22:37)

Yeah.

Gina (22:38)

About a month later, Elizabeth had just gotten out of bed, she was going through her morning routine, when four men arrived to take her away. She was terrified, but she knew that if she tried to resist, they would just use it as evidence of her insanity.

So instead, she put all of her energy into maintaining her composure. And at around eight PM that evening, after a very long ride on the train, Elizabeth and Theophilus arrived at Jacksonville Insane Asylum.

Elizabeth tried to calm herself down by reassuring herself that she was a sane and rational person who didn't belong in an asylum, and that once the doctors realized that, they wouldn't be able to keep her there and they would have to let her go home.

But sadly, she was very mistaken. According to Illinois law at the time, a person could not be committed to an asylum against their will without a public hearing to determine whether or not it was necessary. Unless you were someone's wife.

Kathryn (23:36)

Damn it, I was literally just gonna say, wow, that's impressive. I wouldn't expect that. But it's not impressive, and I would expect that.

Gina (23:45)

Yeah, it's pretty much exactly what you would expect. And yet it still really pisses me off. Basically, the

Kathryn (23:50)

Yeah, as it should.

Gina (23:51)

yeah, the way it works is husbands could have their wives committed without any hearing, without any consent, and they didn't even need to provide evidence. They could just lock them away. And when Elizabeth found that out, her hope crumbled. On paper, she was admitted for, quote, extensive application of body and mind, or as Elizabeth put it,

Placed there by her husband for thinking.

She was taken to one of the women's wards where the quote most sane patients lived. And when she got to talking with them, she discovered that many of them had stories similar to hers. Women who were there not because of their mental health, but because their husbands just didn't want to deal with them anymore. There were, of course, women who actually were there because they were struggling with their mental health, but as time passed and Elizabeth started observing the comings and goings on the ward.

She realized that these women weren't receiving any actual treatment. The best they got was drugs, which at the time wasn't the helpful kind of drugs. There was no Zoloft going around

Kathryn (24:51)

Yeah.

Gina (24:52)

in this place. It was like mercury.

Kathryn (24:55)

my god.

Gina (24:57)

Yeah, it's something else called tincture of Veratria which had arsenic and quinine in it.

Kathryn (25:03)

Alright, well there you go.

Gina (25:04)

It also had wine and cannabis in it, but I think the poison probably outweighed that.

Kathryn (25:10)

I was gonna say

I laugh so I don't cry, just for clarification. Jesus Christ.

Gina (25:16)

Exactly.

Kathryn (25:20)

You can have some wine, a little wine to down, and then some poison that will kill you.

Gina (25:25)

Yeah

yeah. Enjoy your pot and arsenic.

Chloroform was also commonly used, and more often than not, these drugs were not used as treatments. They were used to get the women to quiet down when they wouldn't shut up. And on top of that, Elizabeth started to hear rumors about even worse abuses taking place on other wards. And all of this was deeply disturbing to her, but she was determined to make the best out of a bad situation. So she set out to make some friends.

And she became like the hospital it girl. Like the way she's described.

Kathryn (26:02)

That's what I'm imagining, yeah.

Gina (26:04)

my gosh. Yeah. It it's like the montage in Mean Girls where Lindsay

Kathryn (26:07)

Yes, yes.

Gina (26:09)

Lohan like finally in the in crowd.

Kathryn (26:11)

Yeah, that's what I'm imagining. Like the music

Gina (26:14)

Yeah.

Kathryn (26:14)

is playing and she's like canvassing. Yeah.

Gina (26:17)

Mm-hmm. Yes, yeah.

Everyone loved her. The patients loved her and the staff loved her. She became friends with everybody. And even the big big head honcho in charge, he was this guy, Superintendent McFarland, also an asshole. He couldn't deny that Elizabeth was pretty great. He said that she had, quote, extraordinary mental capacity and power, great charm of manner and taste in dress, and good judgment. But she was totally insane. Totally crazy.

Kathryn (26:44)

I was gonna say, Well

sounds like a really healthy sick person to me.

Gina (26:49)

Right. And it might help to give a bit of context about like where we were at in the field of psychiatry at this point, because there was no formal education for psychiatrists. It's just kind of like a hobby that doctors picked up if they were kind of into it. And because there was no like formal regulations about this kind of thing, it was a very gate-kept profession. And so if you ever questioned someone who quote practiced psychiatry, they would just be like, well, you don't know any better. I get to decide who's insane and who's not.

Kathryn (27:17)

Yeah.

Gina (27:17)

There was no nothing.

So yeah, Elizabeth did make friends with everyone, even if Superintendent McFarland still thought she was crazy. And in fact, she became so popular that she was given a bunch of special privileges, including literally giving her the keys to the ward so that she could just come and go as pleased.

Kathryn (27:38)

What the hell?

Gina (27:39)

Mm-hmm.

Kathryn (27:40)

And yet she's crazy.

Gina (27:41)

And yet she's insane and can't be trusted anywhere but in asylum, yeah.

She was also allowed to work in the asylum sewing room, which was responsible for maintaining all of the bedding, furnishing, and clothing used at the hospital. The patients did the sewing, so it wound up saving McFarland's the equivalent of like thousands and thousands of dollars a year. And working there included having the women sew their own restraining jackets.

Mm-hmm. But the thing that bothered Elizabeth the most is that she wasn't receiving any letters. She had a lot of friends back at home, not to mention she had a lot of kids who were definitely old enough to write to their mother, But weeks and then months passed, and Elizabeth didn't receive any word from any of them, which made her feel completely and totally abandoned.

There's this story that absolutely broke my heart about how at one point early on in her stay at the asylum, a trunk from home was sent to her. It was supposed to have like some of her belongings in it to make her, you know, more comfortable or whatever. You're allowed to have some of your personal effects. And she got so excited because she thought that somewhere in that trunk were gonna be letters from her kids. And she just couldn't wait for it. She wound up getting special permission from the staff to like lock herself in a room.

So she could do it slowly 'cause she knew it was gonna be this big emotional experience. And all she found was like a two sentence note from her daughter basically saying, like, sorry, you're not doing well. Hope you get better soon.

It broke her heart. What she didn't know is that hospital staff and especially Superintendent McFarland were intercepting her mail and keeping it from her.

Kathryn (29:26)

Fucking knew it. There's no way they wouldn't write to her.

Gina (29:29)

Yep, she had received letters from both her friends and her kids, but they just never made it to her.

Kathryn (29:34)

Gross.

Gina (29:35)

Mm-hmm. And that feeling of isolation was devastating. And what's even grosser to me when you dig into the reason why they did this, it wasn't just to be cruel. McFarland did it because well, it was to be cruel, but the way he described it is that he wanted to isolate his patients from the outside world so that they became entirely dependent on him and he became like a patriarchal, kind of godlike figure in their lives, the only place where they can get acceptance and love and all that kind of bullshit.

And so this was like textbook abuse. Horrifying.

Kathryn (30:09)

That's literally how cults are made.

Gina (30:12)

Mm.

Kathryn (30:13)

And abuse of relationships and like everything bad that exists.

Gina (30:17)

Yeah. And that's how you treat people who are struggling with their mental health. You isolate them from everyone that loves them and then they'll get better. Yeah. Right.

Kathryn (30:21)

Yes, everyone knows this. We all know this. Yeah, this

is like 101. Crazy people 101.

Gina (30:27)

Clearly. But worse still was the fact that she couldn't express any of this hopelessness or sadness or abandonment that she felt. Because once again, the people in charge would use that as evidence that she belonged there. Like if you showed any sign that you wanted to leave the hospital or go home to your family, it was a bunch of marks against you and your patient record, because any sane person would want to stay until they got better. One of Elizabeth's friends on her ward wrote.

Quote, we must seem happy when we are miserable, or we can have no chance of release. And so on top of all of this isolation and oppression, there's this extra layer of we have to pretend to be grateful for it, which is its own type of torture. It's just horrifying.

Kathryn (31:09)

Yeah.

Gina (31:10)

And after a few months, Elizabeth had had enough. And she thought to herself, you know, like McFarland knows that I'm not insane, the staff know that I'm not insane, so maybe if I speak out about the way they're treating the patients here, like the drugging and the isolation and all of that, maybe they'll listen to me because they think I'm a rational person. So she wrote a letter to McFarland criticizing his methods and threatening to tell the world what was really going on here if things didn't change.

And she said, quote, of one thing you may rest assured, the time for downtrodden and oppressed women to have their rights has come. Her voice and her pen are going to move the world. of course, McFarland couldn't have Elizabeth spreading ideas like that amongst the other patients. So one night he grabbed her and he took her to a different ward in the hospital. And this one was known as the quote, Maniacs Ward,

She was placed in a cramped room with five other women, and McFarland ordered that she not be given even a scrap of paper on which to write. Elizabeth would later describe this first night in that ward as one of the worst in her life. the women that she was rooming with were terrified and they were unwell and they were very, very poorly cared for. They're described as being like completely covered in dirt and grime because the people who looked after them had just stopped.

Trying to maintain their hygiene, they didn't even bother. But Elizabeth knew that she had only been placed on this ward in order to break her, because McFarland wanted her to be obedient, to be quiet, scared into submission. But that was not her way. And once again she decided to make the best out of it. On her first morning in the ward, she got some water and soap and she started helping the other women bathe. A lot of them.

Were unable to do it themselves, and a lot of them didn't want Elizabeth bathing them, but she tried anyway, she at least offered, and she managed to get a lot of the grime off their skin. She would wash and comb their hair for them. She even managed to convince the staff to replace the rotten straw that was in the mattresses and to let her sew new mattress covers for everyone. She started scrubbing the walls, scrubbing the floors, anything that was dirty, which was pretty much everything.

And slowly, as the days went by, the ward started looking and feeling a little bit better. But that didn't mean things got better for Elizabeth. On at least one occasion, she was attacked by another patient, and she was beaten so badly that at first doctors were afraid she would lose an eye.

And McFarland had specifically ordered that the hospital's most violent female patient be sat next to Elizabeth at mealtimes and sleep next to her at night. He like specifically brought this woman to Elizabeth's ward from a different ward.

Kathryn (33:45)

my god.

Gina (33:46)

To buddy her up with Elizabeth. Yeah. the woman the literally the first thing this woman said to Elizabeth was, I will kill you. she would throw knives at her at dinner, just it was absolute hell. Elizabeth was in a constant state of fear and anxiety.

And that's not even to mention the abuse at the hands of the staff. Women were often restrained. They had their arms tied behind their back before they were beaten so they couldn't protect themselves.

Kathryn (34:12)

What the fuck?

Gina (34:13)

Yep. And when the ward did eventually get baths for the women to bathe in, attendants would hold patients' heads under water until they were nearly dead. Like literally, they would they said, like, quote, until they can't take it anymore.

Kathryn (34:28)

in the world.

Gina (34:29)

It wasn't even disguised as treatment.

Kathryn (34:31)

Okay, I think that's

I think that's the question I was like trying to figure out how to ask. Like they were

just not even pretending that this was treatment, they were just abusive. my god.

Gina (34:43)

Yep. And

This kind of time period that Elizabeth spends in the hospital, it coincides with the onset of the American Civil War. And a lot of people were, you know, gone for the war effort. There was a lot of staff shortages going on. And so when attendants would abuse patients,

McFarland wouldn't fire them because there was no one to replace them.

Kathryn (35:03)

Damn.

Gina (35:05)

Elizabeth's horror and her indignation grew every single day that she was in there, and she was adamant that someone had to expose what was happening behind closed doors. So our girl started keeping a secret journal. She wasn't allowed to have paper, so she had to get creative, and she started tearing the margins from newspapers, because other patients and staff members would have newspapers sometimes. So she would just rip off little tiny bits from the margins.

And eventually when she was allowed back into the sewing room, she would take little bits of tissue paper here and there, she would take little scraps of cloth, and she would completely fill the space on these pit on these things with teeny tiny little letters to maximize the space, describing what was going on. The conditions in the asylum, the abuse, and instances where doctors and staff admitted that they didn't think she was insane. And she hid all of these scraps of paper in the lining of her bonnet.

And as she wrote more, the bonnet kind of like filled up with paper. And every now and then someone would pick it up and be like, Wow, that's a really heavy bonnet. And she would just be like, I know, isn't that crazy? But no one ever thought to look inside.

Kathryn (36:16)

This is this

is wild. To me, bonnets are something that like I forget real women actually wore and not just part of pilgrim costumes for the Thanksgiving play in elementary school. You know what I mean? I forget that it's

Gina (36:31)

Yeah.

Kathryn (36:35)

like a real thing. Wow, that's wild.

Gina (36:38)

I love a weaponized bonnet. That's wonderful.

Kathryn (36:40)

Yeah, me too. Let's bring well, no,

I don't wanna bring bonnets back, but I'd like to talk about them more so I remember they exist.

Gina (36:47)

Yeah, let's let's turn more women's clothing into instruments against the patriarchy. Corsets with guns on them. Sorry, no, that's not I don't I don't support guns either. That's not one that's not gonna work.

Kathryn (37:01)

yeah, you're not allowed to say that in the UK. I'll say it. Corsets with guns on them.

Ha

Gina (37:12)

beautiful.

So she has this really heavy bonnet that has totally nothing in it. And years start to pass. With Elizabeth repeatedly being told that if she wanted to get out, all she had to do was agree to obey her husband. And every time, Elizabeth was like, No, I am not insane. And entrusting that man to protect me would be an insane decision. So I can't agree to do it. She stood up for herself and for the other patients at every

Every opportunity. Even when it got her punished, even when it landed her in solitary, she advocated for the women around her because she knew that someone had to and that no one else was going to. She was an incessant and a committed thorn in the asylum's side. And through it all, she chronicled everything. I love a thorn in the side. Absolutely love a thorn in the

Kathryn (39:03)

Love it.

Gina (39:04)

side.

And then one day in 1863, after three years of being a patient slash prisoner, the hospital's trustees announced that she was to be discharged. Turns out McFarland had finally recommended that Elizabeth be set free. Not because she was sane. He still insisted that she was crazy, but as he would later brag to his friends,

He proposed the discharge quote as the only means of getting rid of an intolerable and unendurable source of annoyance.

Kathryn (39:37)

my god. a t shirt right there.

Gina (39:42)

Intolerable and unendurable source of annoyance. I love that.

Kathryn (39:47)

my god, this episode, you're doing

a great job, but it's like giving me a headache. Like these fucking men.

Gina (39:52)

I know.

my god, these fucking men.

So the hospital declared that Elizabeth was incurably insane and therefore could not be taken care of at the hospital anymore, and she was sent home.

Kathryn (40:09)

Okay. Sure.

Gina (40:09)

Ha ha

Kathryn (40:10)

Sure. Whatever. Fine, I guess.

Gina (40:16)

Being released was great and all, but it also filled Elizabeth with fear because she knew that she was just gonna be released into the custody of Theophilus. And she had heard rumors that he was planning on putting her in an even worse asylum where this time she would never get out. In June 1863, Theophilus came to get her from the hospital, and as they boarded the train to leave, she was absolutely terrified. She didn't know where they were going.

But she also refused to give Theophilus the satisfaction of asking, because by this point she obviously hated him, like cold-shouldered him as much as she she possibly could. She actually openly spoke shit about him to the other passengers with him in earshot. I 100% agree.

Kathryn (40:56)

Good. Like scary, but good.

Gina (41:00)

And she would later write something to the effect of, like, yeah, I kept talking smack and he didn't say shit about it. Which I love for her.

Kathryn (41:06)

Yeah, because he knows he ain't shit.

Gina (41:09)

So she just sat there, making friends with the other passengers and dreading whatever was gonna happen next. And so she was shocked when they disembarked, and he handed her over to her best friend and her best friend's husband.

Kathryn (41:23)

Okay.

Gina (41:24)

Theophilus told Elizabeth that she could stay with them on one condition, to never come anywhere near their children again. There's the catch.

Kathryn (41:33)

Okay. Yeah.

Gina (41:35)

He said that if she did, he would put her back in an asylum for good this time. But for Elizabeth, abandoning her children was simply not an option, let alone abandoning them with a man like that. So she started looking for any way to get back to her kids.

Luckily, in the months that she stayed with her best friend, she found a really good community in their town. The townspeople actually held what was called a public indignation meeting, about the way that Elizabeth had been treated. And it's essentially my understanding is that it was just a very formal way of being like, hey, this is bullshit. Like it was just a bunch of people getting together and just being mad about the same thing. And I think it also inspired

Kathryn (42:11)

Okay.

Gina (42:12)

it like like letter writing campaigns, like they would write letters to governors and legislatures together and things like that.

and they were angry not just about the asylum stuff, like all the abuses she endured and witnessed there, but also about the way Theophilus had treated her. And together they raised the equivalent of what would today be around $800 or 600 pounds, which was enough money to get her home to her kids and to cover any legal fees should the need arise. Elizabeth was so touched by this support that

She asked if they would help her publish a pamphlet that she had written. Nothing big, just one little pamphlet detailing the abuse that she had seen at the hospital. the townspeople were like, fuck yeah, we'll help you with that. So they printed it in the county paper, and using a portion of the money they had raised, they printed a thousand copies of it to sell. And thus Elizabeth Packard's first publication came to be.

She started selling the pamphlets, mainly through the post office, and as her story spread, the wider public became just outraged to learn about what she had gone through. And more and more people started voicing their support for her and really raised her confidence, you know, that if I go home, it'll be okay. Like society's on my side.

Kathryn (43:24)

Mm-hmm.

Gina (43:24)

I have been affirmed and reaffirmed. Like it I can I feel strong enough to go home now. And so four months after she was released, Elizabeth mustered up her courage and she bought a one-way ticket.

Back to her home and children. When she got to her house, Theophilus was there. He was the first person that she saw. And most of her kids were there as well. I think the two oldest sons were like grown up and out of the house by this point, but the other

Kathryn (43:48)

Mm-hmm.

Gina (43:48)

kids were there. And Theophilus was like, What are you doing? We do not want you here, kind of thing. And Elizabeth was like, Look, this is my home. I am your wife. These are my children. This is where I belong. I'm not going anywhere.

And so she stayed. And Theophilus couldn't get her to leave. He didn't make it easy for her, obviously, because he's Theophilus. In the days and weeks that followed, he went out of his way to make her life as hard as he could. He took all of the supplies in the house, like all the food and the linens and like some of Elizabeth's nice clothes, and he locked it all away and didn't give her a key. He actively told the children not to listen to their mother.

He would tell their kids, like, your mom's crazy. Don't listen to her. She's out of her mind. And anytime she spoke to the kids, he would disagree with her, no matter what she said. It was just he had to disagree. But she held

Kathryn (44:41)

Jesus.

Gina (44:42)

her head up high, ignored him as much as she could, and she carried on to the best of her ability. Like if he said something that was meant to hurt her, she would pretend she didn't even hear it. Take the high road, move on, take care of the kids. That's all she cared about.

Kathryn (44:55)

See, that right there, that's how I know I wouldn't succeed in the same way that

Gina (44:59)

Yeah.

Kathryn (45:02)

I can't. I've yeah.

Gina (45:05)

Well, to the asylum with you.

Kathryn (45:07)

Truly. I I've never met a high road that I could successfully travel.

Gina (45:14)

Look, I feel like surely the high road has to be relative, right? Like if they go really, really

Kathryn (45:18)

Yeah.

Gina (45:19)

low, if you just go a little bit higher, that's still a high road.

Kathryn (45:22)

That's true.

Gina (45:24)

Or you could just go lower. Way more fun. Yeah,

Kathryn (45:26)

I was gonna say I can't do it straight in the dirt.

Gina (45:34)

I do empathize with that. I do often think about how if I woke up one day in history, like in pre this time, I would be burned as a witch. Like I wouldn't survive the day.

Kathryn (45:46)

Yeah, I think that all the time. Because there are so many things, even just what you said about like I'm so annoyed that I'm astonished that she like still had a best friend. Because it would have been so much easier for her best friend slash that whole crew to just be like, you know, she's dangerous, she's got ideas, we probably shouldn't touch this. You know what I mean? Like, how

Gina (46:10)

Mm-hmm, yeah.

Kathryn (46:11)

upsetting that that's truly the most astonishing thing.

To me in this story

Gina (46:16)

Yeah.

Kathryn (46:17)

is that she had people to help her. That's awful. Yeah.

Gina (46:19)

She had so many friends. Yeah, and there were some people that

kind of, you know, did what we're talking about and kind of turned

Kathryn (46:26)

Yeah.

Gina (46:27)

their back on her. And when she got back into town, she just like cold-shouldered those guys, like just completely ignored them, blanked them in

Kathryn (46:33)

Good for her.

Gina (46:33)

public, kind of thing. Good for her. But she still had like a massive amount of friends. She was a really beloved person. And her best friend, it's actually kind of sweet. She, her name is Angeline, and she was also her cousin.

But they had been raised together as sisters. So like she had known

Kathryn (46:48)

Okay.

Gina (46:49)

Elizabeth her entire life, was so suppor they were really supportive of each other, had a great relationship. Like their their best friendship, I just love it so much. It's so nice.

Kathryn (46:58)

Okay.

That does paint a picture. Like she knows through and through that she's not this isn't like someone she met at church or whatever, you know.

Gina (47:07)

Right, right, yeah.

Kathryn (47:09)

Okay, that does yeah.

Gina (47:11)

So yeah, it kind of was like Elizabeth was living two lives. She when she was at home with Theophilus, it was obviously awful because he was such a giant prick. He made every second of her life miserable and difficult. She got to be with her kids, which was nice, but it was still a really tough existence. And whenever she wasn't at home, she would be, you know, at her friend's place having dinner, meeting a friend over there, meeting a friend here, having conversations about what was going on. Everyone knew what the situation was like in the Packard home.

It was like a very open secret, not even a secret. And Elizabeth knew that she was there on borrowed time. Theophilus could throw her into another asylum at any moment. And so she cooked up a plan to make sure that could never happen again. She killed him! She didn't kill him. Sorry, I'll tell you. Yeah, sorry. This is the Gina edit.

Kathryn (48:03)

went a very different direction than I was expecting. The story's about

murder

Gina (48:11)

been a murder of

a prick! So yeah she she comes up with this plan where she took a set of Theophilus's house keys and she buried them outside. And she did this what?

Kathryn (48:29)

No,

that's just so Gina coded

Gina (48:34)

I'm gonna get my revenge by burying your keys.

Kathryn (48:36)

You want to abuse me? You're not

glocking anything.

Gina (48:44)

Today's sponsor is Simply Safe.

yeah. So she took his keys, buried them in the dirt outside. And she did this because she knew that he would freak out over these missing keys. Because one of his whole things was that he wanted to control every second that she was in his home, their shared home, which meant that he wanted to control which rooms she could enter when she came and went from the house, locking her room when she slept at night, all this stuff. And so she knew that he would freak out, and she knew that he would blame her for it.

And lock her in the nursery room as punishment. Because he had done this before. That was like his go-to move when he was angry at her. He would lock her in the nursery. And she wanted him to do this because, as she now knew, that was illegal. Remember the whole husbands can commit their

wives to an asylum without evidence thing?

Kathryn (49:39)

Mm-hmm.

Gina (49:40)

So that was legal. You could confine your wife against her will as long as it was in an asylum.

You couldn't confine her against her will in her own home.

Kathryn (49:49)

Okay. Okay.

Gina (49:52)

So if she could get him to do

this and get him caught, they could take the case to a judge who would have to hear her out and might just help her get her life and her kids back.

Kathryn (50:02)

My god, she's so smart.

Gina (50:04)

She's so incredibly smart. And she was also 100% right, because after she buried the keys, he did exactly what she thought he would do. He locked her in the nursery and he nailed the windows shut.

It wasn't a secret that Elizabeth was being kept prisoner. On multiple occasions, her friends came to the house to see her and they were turned away. She actually was also like spoke to one of these friends through the window. like one of her friends was standing on the outside, Elizabeth was on the inside, and she was like telling her friend, Hey, this is what's going on. Please

Kathryn (50:34)

Mm-hmm.

Gina (50:35)

help me get out of here. Like the plan is a go. Go, go, go. Code red.

Kathryn (50:38)

Yeah.

Gina (50:39)

And those friends didn't keep quiet about what they knew. And so on January 12th, a representative from the court.

Came to their home and informed Theophilus that he and Elizabeth were to appear before a judge that very day. When they arrived at the courthouse, they were met by a huge crowd of supporters for Elizabeth, which caused Theophilus to seethe with rage. When they finally got in front of a judge, the judge was basically like, word on the street is that you've unlawfully imprisoned your wife. What's up with that?

Theophilus said that he, quote, admitted the exercise of slight necessary restraint over her on account of her insanity, to which the judge replied, prove it. And thus

Kathryn (51:22)

Mm.

Gina (51:23)

Elizabeth Packard was finally given her day in court. It's five days, actually. Five days in court. Trial lasts for five days.

And it wound up turning into a trial over whether or not Elizabeth was actually insane and therefore in need of confinement. Theophilus' side, the defense, went first. His lawyers produced witnesses testifying that Elizabeth was definitely insane because, quote, she disliked being called insane.

Kathryn (51:54)

yeah, well, you know. They'll

Gina (51:56)

Mm-hmm.

Kathryn (51:57)

do it.

Gina (51:59)

Other evidence that they used included quote, her feelings towards her husband.

Because it wasn't like people thought it was crazy if you didn't like your husband.

Kathryn (52:06)

Well yeah.

Gina (52:09)

Yeah. And one w this was my favorite thing that a witness says as evidence of her

Kathryn (52:13)

no.

Gina (52:13)

insanity. because quote, she failed to illuminate me and fill me with light.

Kathryn (52:19)

Who said the theemopyps?

Gina (52:24)

It was one of the guys that went to their church.

Physicians from Elizabeth's time at the asylum also testified against her, once again using her hatred of her husband and her religious views as proof of her insanity. One of Theophilus' witnesses was literally laughed off the stand. Pretty sure it was the same guy who said the thing about illumination with light.

Kathryn (52:46)

I was gonna say, gee, I personally can empathize

with yeah. Jesus.

Gina (52:53)

And I do want to clarify something, because I know I keep saying that the staff at the hospital knew that she wasn't insane, but now they're testifying against her. It was kind of split. The staff couldn't really agree. the big head doctors, like the peoples whose decisions made the most material impact, they insisted she was crazy. It was the people, the attendants, like the like the cooks and the sewing mistress and things like that. The people who were friends with her. Yeah, they all knew.

Kathryn (53:16)

That makes sense. That's

yeah, I there is a big difference between people running that type of place versus people working at that type of place. There's so

Gina (53:27)

Yeah.

Kathryn (53:28)

often like a I'm not evil, I just need to feed my kids and this is the job that I can you know what I mean? Like that is not surprising

Gina (53:34)

Hundred percent.

Kathryn (53:35)

to me at all that that's the split.

Gina (53:37)

Yeah, it's actually it's really heartbreaking to read about some of the staff because they were in that exact position, especially during the middle of the Civil War. They're like, I

Kathryn (53:41)

I bet. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Gina (53:44)

don't know if my husband's gonna come home. I need money to take care of my kids. I'm watching people be tortured all day, but I just I need the money and there's nowhere else for me to go. It's so sad on

Kathryn (53:53)

Mm-hmm.

Gina (53:53)

so many levels.

Kathryn (53:54)

Yeah.

Gina (53:56)

When it was time for Elizabeth's side, her lawyers called witnesses from their neighborhood who were not part of Theophilus' church. They testified that Elizabeth was completely rational, even and especially when discussing religion. And in a very remarkable turn of events, Elizabeth herself was allowed to speak in her defense.

Because throughout the trial, Theophilus's witnesses kept being like, like she's crazy because of her religious views. They make no sense. Like when she talks about religion, she gets incoherent, blah, blah, blah. And so her lawyers were like, Hey, Your Honor, can Elizabeth read the court an essay that she wrote about religion, and then the jury can decide whether or not she's rational? And the judge allowed it. Judge's name was Charles Starr, by the way.

Kathryn (54:41)

Man, this shit just keeps getting better and better.

Gina (54:44)

so Elizabeth reads this essay in front of the court, and it turns out her religious views were incredibly logical and filled with so much common sense that after she finished reading, the judge had to do the whole order in the court thing because people were clapping for her.

Kathryn (55:00)

okay.

Gina (55:00)

And as the days passed, sentiment in the courtroom turned more and more obviously against Theophilus. He complained about the quote vulgar hisses from the females in the crowd.

Kathryn (55:15)

Man,

this is such a good like guys sorry, but like it's so important to have strong female friendships. This is why. Get yourself

Gina (55:24)

it so very much is.

Kathryn (55:25)

a girl crew.

Gina (55:27)

Get yourself a girl who will hiss at your man.

Kathryn (55:29)

Yes.

Gina (55:30)

Interestingly, Theophilus didn't show up for the last day of the trial. He just let his lawyers handle it. Wonder why?

Kathryn (55:34)

Weird. Soup's

weird. Yeah, I don't know.

Gina (55:38)

Anyway, the final witness was a physician and a theologian named Dr. Duncanson. He was considered an expert witness since this whole thing relied very heavily on her religious beliefs and, you know, insanity, which is a physician thing. He had been given time to interview Elizabeth, kind of get to know her a little bit, and he testified that while they didn't agree on everything, she was definitely sane. On the stand, he said, quote,

I do not call people insane because they differ from me. I pronounce her a sane woman and wish we had a nation of such women. The jury deliberated for just seven minutes before declaring that Elizabeth

Kathryn (56:16)

Whoa.

Gina (56:17)

Yeah, people had barely left the courtroom. Like they they adjourned at 10 p.m. They assumed it was gonna be like an all-night kind of thing. People hadn't even left,

Kathryn (56:24)

Yeah.

Gina (56:25)

and their jury came back out.

Kathryn (56:27)

That I've n I've never heard that before ever.

Gina (56:30)

So f and it was a jury of all men too, 'cause this is when all male juries were a thing.

Kathryn (56:34)

That shit's wild. That's w wild.

Gina (56:35)

Yeah. And I think that really like

like she was just so my gosh. She did such a good job. they deliberated for just seven minutes before they declared that Elizabeth Packard was in fact sane. And the judge declared that she, quote, be relieved of all restraint incompatible with her condition as a sane woman. So basically you can't keep her prisoner, you can't send her to an asylum. It was a massive win. It was incredible, and it was wildly vindicating for Elizabeth.

Because for a long

time it was like screaming into the void, you know, like no one's ever gonna

Kathryn (57:08)

Mm-hmm.

Gina (57:09)

hear me. What am I ever gonna do? And finally she reaches this fucking day where it's the men deciding that like the people who had oppressed her and they're decided, just I don't know, just you can it's palpable what she must have been feeling in that moment. Gets me so riled up.

Kathryn (57:21)

Yeah.

Gina (57:22)

But before she had even left the courtroom, she was handed a letter from Theophilus, informing her that he had left town and he had taken the children with him.

He rented their house to another family. Literally, when Elizabeth went home, someone else answered the door.

He had taken her wardrobe and her clothing, he had sold or taken all of her furniture, and sh he had taken the money that she was left by her father.

Kathryn (57:51)

what? I'm I just like need a moment to to digest that. I So like while he was too much of a little bitch to show up in court, this is what he was doing. Great.

Gina (58:02)

Yeah. Because the last day

of court was on a Monday. So he had the whole weekend to kind of get this plan together, get the ball rolling, get everyone out of town. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Because the sentiment

Kathryn (58:11)

'Cause he knew he was gonna lose. Yeah.

Gina (58:14)

was so against him. Yeah.

Kathryn (58:16)

What a fucking worm.

Gina (58:17)

such a grimy little worm. Elizabeth did appeal to the Supreme Court of Illinois and Massachusetts, because she was still in Illinois, but Theophilus, turns out, had run away to Massachusetts. So she appealed to both state Supreme Courts. But married women in those states had no legal rights to their property or their children. She was left with nothing and there was not a damn thing she could do about it. So she decided to fuck around and find out.

was actually a much more measured approach. Yeah. She was actually very she very conscientious. Yeah.

Kathryn (58:45)

Might as well. Yeah, but like you might as well like

you have like nothing to lose at that point. Like the thing that she needed to like leave that hospital for was her children and she like gets out and goes through all this and they're still taken from her.

Gina (59:02)

And there's still nothing she can do. Like it's still completely legal, all of this stuff. Yeah.

Kathryn (59:05)

Yeah. Yeah.

Gina (59:08)

one thing that she did have, luckily, was the fucking nerve. So she went to a publisher in Chicago and she convinced them to publish another one of her pamphlets.

And after she had gotten a bit of money from that, she published a book. And actually, she wound up publishing tons and tons of books. And she wrote about everything. She wrote about the abuse at the hospital, she wrote about religion, women's rights.

And her story as a married woman who was under the law treated and actually legally non-existent. And she found that when she confronted people with her story with evidence that the system was broken, it got a lot harder for them to ignore it.

Her books started selling by the thousands. And after a while, she had gone from a penniless abandoned wife to a pretty well-off independent woman with a passion for activism. And she also became a political campaigner. She founded the Anti-Insane Asylum Society, which lobbied government officials in Massachusetts, where she was living, because she wound up trying to go to Massachusetts to get her kids back, didn't really pan out. and she also lobbied government officials in Illinois,

And she called for mental health care reform, better rights for married women, freedom of speech. And a few years later, when she was in her early 50s, Illinois passed a personal liberty bill, which made it so that anyone accused of insanity, including married women, couldn't be committed without a jury trial.

And that any current patient who had been admitted without a trial was now entitled to one. Massachusetts passed its own version of this as well, and within a decade or so, around 30 other states had passed similar laws, including the right for mental health patients to send and receive mail, facility inspection requirements, and other regulations for the humane treatment of patients. And informally, these were referred to as Packard's laws.

But really, her legal legacy is even bigger than that because the precedent that she set helped strengthen pretty much any case that dealt with women being treated as non-persons. So cases having to do with like property rights, the right to sue, and eventually even the right to vote. Like Elizabeth Packard had an absolutely massive impact on women's rights and mental health patients' rights in America. Meanwhile, other laws were passed which gave married women rights to their property and children.

So I'm very happy to tell you that in 1869 she was finally awarded custody of her three youngest kids. Her other three kids had already like grown up and didn't need like

Kathryn (1:01:34)

Yeah.

Gina (1:01:35)

taken care of anymore. But all three of her oldest kids who like didn't who were out of the house, they unanimously supported the custody transfer. And they actually all

Kathryn (1:01:44)

Okay.

Gina (1:01:44)

wound up moving into a house together. So she had all of her babies together again.

Kathryn (1:01:48)

Ugh, good. Because that's so scary. There's always that danger of like the parent getting under their skin and just that worm in their ear type thing and like convincing them the mom

is crazy or whatever.

Gina (1:02:05)

And that did

happen. I didn't go super into

Kathryn (1:02:05)

That's a relief. Yeah.

Gina (1:02:07)

it, but it the the kid who one of her sons was named Samuel. It was her third

Kathryn (1:02:13)

Mm-hmm.

Gina (1:02:13)

oldest boy. And he was he kinda drank the Kool-Aid. I think he was in his teens when his mom came home from the hospital, and he actually

Kathryn (1:02:20)

Yeah.

Gina (1:02:21)

stood guard outside of the room she was locked in. Like that's how pervasive his father had been at changing his opinion about his mom. But after a while, once he kind of grew up, he wound up becoming a lawyer.

in reconciling

Kathryn (1:02:32)

Mm.

Gina (1:02:32)

with his mom, and he actually helped her draft early versions of the bills that would become Packard's Law. Like he became a very passionate supporter and advocate for his mom. And he once wrote something to the effect of, like, I only hope someday I can make the impact that you've had. Like it like makes me emotional how supportive her kids were,

Kathryn (1:02:47)

Good. Yeah.

Gina (1:02:50)

even with a horrible father like that.

Kathryn (1:02:52)

Yeah.

Gina (1:02:53)

so finally Elizabeth was allowed to be the mother.

That she always wanted to be without Theophilus looming over them day and night. And when she eventually died in 1897, when she was 80 years old, her death was reported all across the country. And in August 2023, the asylum was renamed from the McFarland Mental Health Center to the Elizabeth Parsons Ware-Packard Mental Health Center.

Gina (1:03:19)

Hi, it's Future Gina here making a quick correction. The Jacksonville Asylum where Elizabeth was imprisoned actually shut down in 2012. By then it was known as the Jacksonville Developmental Center. The institution that was renamed for Elizabeth is in Springfield, Illinois.

Gina (1:03:37)

And so she lives on today.

Kathryn (1:03:38)

Huh. Damn, she really got them in the end. Yeah.

So that's the thing.

Gina (1:03:42)

Yeah, ma'am.

Kathryn (1:03:43)

Like I knew about like the last

few moments of that story, I didn't know everything that went into Like I knew that there were laws named after her and I knew that she was an advocate for like mental health and all that kind of stuff. I never knew her whole story or anything. That shit's wild. Yeah, I'm sure.

Gina (1:04:01)

And there's so much I had to leave out for time. Like my original version

of this script was like five pages longer. It's such a powerful story. And it's also incredibly well documented because she had journals throughout all of it and she was such a prolific writer.

Kathryn (1:04:12)

Mm. That's crazy, yeah.

Gina (1:04:16)

So that's that. I need a moment to decompress.

Kathryn (1:04:17)

I feel like I know, I feel kind of exhausted. I can't

believe you h like had well you didn't have to. I'm grateful that you did all that research 'cause I'm just like, my god, that's a lot.

Gina (1:04:31)

Yeah, I'm kinda sweaty.

Kathryn (1:04:34)

Ha ha ha.

Gina (1:04:35)

But that's alright, I lit my revenge candle, so

Kathryn (1:04:38)

Okay, I literally just noticed that a few minutes ago and

I was like, I bet that's her revenge candle back there.

Gina (1:04:46)

Just so those men know in the afterlife that

Kathryn (1:04:48)

Mm-hmm.

Gina (1:04:49)

we remember.

Kathryn (1:04:50)

I'm sure they know.

I'd ask if you wanted me to lighten the mood, but I don't I don't have that for you, but we can talk about something else. Okay,

Gina (1:05:00)

Yeah, can you make me make me feel worse?

Kathryn (1:05:03)

So I'm on I'm on a journey, Gina. One of my many journeys

Gina (1:05:07)

Mm.

Kathryn (1:05:08)

that I will never get to the end of. one of the journeys I am on is trying to find a paranormal game I am not afraid to play. So

Gina (1:05:18)

okay.

Kathryn (1:05:19)

I re-referenced this Ghoulish Games book that we did the Sarah Sarita game. Well

Tried to play, but they said no.

Gina (1:05:29)

Mm.

Kathryn (1:05:31)

and one of one of the scariest games I've heard of only has a fear factor of two skulls. I think the max is like four or five. So a friendly reminder, this book is written by Amanda Whitman. She's very brave because her fear factor scale is not what I would make it. but are you familiar with the game Charlie Charlie?

Gina (1:05:53)

I don't think so.

Kathryn (1:05:54)

So I will say this, I'll read this to you and we can decide if we want to play. So the little blurb is titled Charlie Charlie Panic. Charlie Charlie is thought to have come from a popular Spanish game called El Juego de la Lapic Lapicera. I'm so sorry, everyone. El Juego de la Lapicera, the pen game.

In 2015, Charlie Charlie went viral after teenagers in the Dominican Republic posted videos of themselves playing it, which introduced the game to a new audience. As the game's popularity spread, the lore shifted, and the titular Charlie became a Mexican demon who was in the business of snatching the souls of his players.

Soon there were allegations that the game was causing trauma to the children who played, including reports of young people being hospitalized with hysteria after communicating with Charlie. As often occurs with paranormal or divination games, a satanic panic was ignited. Religious leaders denounced the game, calling it dangerous, despite there being no evidence of a Mexican demon named Charlie.

Can you write pause because yes.

Gina (1:07:09)

Phrase No evidence of a Mexican demon named Charlie is wild.

Kathryn (1:07:14)

Like, yeah, I imagine there isn't. Yeah.

Gina (1:07:16)

Mm, probably not.

Kathryn (1:07:21)

The furor eventually died down and no one has claimed to encounter Charlie the Demon in quite some time. But as with all games listed in this book, play at your own risk.

So part of why I wanted to bring this up is because I feel a little silly being so scared of it because of everything that I just said. but it's one of those games where you ask permission first. So basically what we would do is we take a sheet of blank paper as quote unquote game board or base or whatever, and you place two pencils or I'm gonna say pens.

at the center of the paper, creating a cross shape that cuts the boards into cro qua crocker quadrants.

And so then you write, you know, no, yes in each quadrant and the bottom quadrant, it's like basically it's like yes, no, no, yes, or whatever.

Gina (1:08:20)

Ok cool.

Kathryn (1:08:21)

And we say, Charlie, Charlie, can we play? And the top pencil will move, allegedly. And whatever quadrant the pencil touches down on first is Charlie's response. Does that make sense?

Gina (1:08:36)

Yeah, what happens if Charlie the Mexican demon lets us play?

Kathryn (1:08:41)

That's what I've always been too scared to find out. Because

Gina (1:08:44)

Okay, let's do it.

Kathryn (1:08:45)

when you end the game, it's you don't just say, Okay, we're done. You have to it's similar to Sarah Sarita. you have to say, Charlie Charlie, can we stop? And he's allowed to say no. Yeah. So are you

Gina (1:08:59)

Yeah, I wanna play.

Kathryn (1:09:00)

d are you doing the board?

Gina (1:09:03)

Yeah, I can do it.

Kathryn (1:09:04)

Why don't you do the board and then I can I'll reference the rule book should the need arise.

Gina (1:09:10)

Okay, quadrants.

Yes, yes, no, no. Okay, so just to confirm, this is what I'm doing.

can you see? Okay, cool.

Kathryn (1:09:22)

Yes. Yes. Sorry, it took me a second to be able to see it.

Gina (1:09:26)

And I d am I trying to balance the pencil so that it doesn't move yet?

Kathryn (1:09:30)

Yeah, but

it doesn't have to be like so one side of the pencil can be on the paper. It doesn't have to be do you know what I'm saying? It does it's not like floating in the air. Yeah.

Gina (1:09:37)

Okay. Yeah, okay.

Okay, cool.

Kathryn (1:09:45)

So when I

count to three, let's say, we say Charlie Charlie, can we play? Ready?

Gina (1:09:51)

Got it. Okay.

Kathryn (1:09:52)

Okay. two, three.

Charlie, Charlie, can we play?

Gina (1:09:55)

Charlie, Charlie, can we play?

The pencils have unfortunately not moved at all.

Kathryn (1:10:05)

Maybe just be like

Hm.

Gina (1:10:18)

And said, No.

Kathryn (1:10:23)

I'm so sad about that. Okay, well, that's all we

have for you, ladies and gentlemen, etc. I don't know if we'll ever play a paranormal game on this podcast. Maybe we will, maybe we won't. If you have a paranormal game that you want us

Gina (1:10:40)

Ooh.

Kathryn (1:10:41)

to try, let us know. Not gonna promise that we'll do it, but I'll read through it and see if we will. Gina will do it.

Gina (1:10:46)

I'll do it.

Kathryn (1:10:50)

Huge shout out to Clobear Money Coach for sponsoring this episode. If you are enjoying yourself, please give us a five-star review or whatever rating wherever you listen. And if you want more from us each month, particularly if you want to be part of the select few that gets to hear our episodes early and ad-free, go on and join us over on Patreon. Until you do that, what's our closing? my god, what's our closing?

Gina (1:11:16)

Smell you later, cheese bags.

Kathryn (1:11:18)

keep Okay, I kinda wanna end like that. End the recording. Bye, stinky cheese.