Minnesota Poet Shocks Nation
Martha Nasch is “The Woman Who Never Ate, Drank, or Slept for Seven Years.”
Small Town, Big News
1934 marked the year Martha Gruening Nasch, a former farm girl from Belle Plaine, Minn., asserted to a news reporter in Saint Paul that she’d taken “neither food nor drink for seven years,” and that she would undergo medical tests or observations in order to prove her impossible feat (Sioux City Journal, 13 Sept., 1934, front page). She reported concerns of numbness, loss of taste acuity, and a loss of her appetite, but those details were glossed over for a more sensational narrative.
“The world will not believe me … they told me I was insane!”
(M. Nasch, 1934)
7-Year Faster Lives To Tell Her Tale!
A media frenzy followed with ninety-plus overzealous adaptations of her supernatural story across North America, including a mention in Time weekly magazine. Martha’s attempt to spread awareness for a little-known medical condition resulted in her becoming a media sensation and declared a high-level master of the food-less Breatharian lifestyle.
Of her seven years without an appetite, Martha spent six and one-half of those locked away in the Saint Peter State Hospital for the Insane in Nicollet County, Minnesota. While there, “They tried to force feed me. They thought I was insane,” she said of the traumatizing experience (La Crosse Tribune, Sept. 10, 1934).
When she first reported trouble with eating and drinking to a doctor in 1927, he diagnosed her with a “case of nerves” (La Crosse Tribune, Sept. 10, 1934). With the doctor’s recommendation, her husband Louis Nasch Jr. sent Martha to Saint Peter for psychiatric treatment.
Local hospital historian Beth Zabel has clarified that this decision was likely one of the few known ways to address what people must have thought to be delusional thinking. Nearly a century later, Martha’s great-granddaughter, Janelle Molony, has determined that Martha was never mentally ill to begin with.
“I was forsaken … and put in a dungeon where my suffering has no end.”
(M. Nasch, 1932)
Research Cannot Disprove Her Wild Claims
A newly released book explores Martha’s genealogical past, relevant social-political trends of the 20s and 30s, and the medical opinions and treatment options for those who suffered from mental illness — including asylum committals and dubious practices that are now prohibited.
Extensive research into such medical practices and a review of one hundred years of medical case studies allowed Molony to pinpoint a more accurate diagnosis for her ancestor. The results are now published in the nonfiction book, Poems from the Asylum by Martha Nasch (2021). Unfortunately, research into her medical and mental health case cannot actually disprove Martha’s claims of extreme, prolonged fasting (though personal doubts remain).
Copies of the book are available at the St. Peter Hospital Museum, at the Nicollet and Sibley County Historical Societies, through the Glore Psychiatric Museum, and worldwide on Amazon.
“You’re a million miles from no where, but few miles from your home.
To help loved ones know your feelings: send thoughts to them in poem”
(M. Nasch, 1932)
Local Asylum Expert Reviewed Martha’s Accounts
As the title suggests, the book also contains the complete anthology of poems Martha composed while institutionalized — some of which are highly disturbing, others are quite sentimental and reflect on missing her loved ones back home in Saint Paul, Ramsey County and near the family farm in Jessenland Township, Sibley County.
St. Peter State Hospital Museum historian Beth Zabel has reviewed the book, saying: “The poetry analysis is fascinating … I love seeing the original documents … I found it easy to read,” and she recommends it to family historians, poetry lovers, health service workers, mental health workers and peer advocates (22 Oct. 2021).
Minnesota Poet Goes Viral
More on Martha’s incredible story is easy to find online in numerous historical newspapers, though more recently she has been featured in the US News & World Report (2022), discussed on the ABC morning show “Minnesota Live,” seen on the covers of the St. Peter Herald and Mankato Free Press, with forthcoming publications in the Ramsey County History and Minnesota Genealogist journals.
A farcical piece on Martha circulated in 2014 from the Museum of Hoaxes, attempting to roast the poet and discredit her testimony from 1934, but all claims have since proved erroneous. A more accurate introduction to the asylum poet can be found at the publisher’s webpage: JanelleMolony.com/SevenYearsInsane
Since the publication of poems composed in the insane asylum, Martha Nasch has received posthumous awards of merit through two American poetry societies. Historians, Granddaughter Jodi Decker and Great-Granddaughter Janelle Molony (publisher of the new book), were approached by PBS to collaborate on a television project featuring Martha, and Molony has recently accepted an invitation to speak on Martha’s behalf at the 2022 Pranic World Festival for Breatharians in Italy.
The family is excited to see their small-town family tree research develop into a global sensation and would like to encourage others to take a closer look for any surprises they may find in their own family histories. The mother-daughter team administers an ongoing discussion on the life and writing of Martha Nasch on Facebook.com/SevenYearsInsane (@SevenYearsInsane).
See more from the author by following on Medium and on social media. More publications by Molony can be found on her official author webpage.
