It’s been a while. Overall, its been a crazy summer, where it seems that when I when I wrap one thing up, another presents itself. So, there is a town that seems to be connected to many of the children in anatomical records from the early twentieth century. A quick google search of Lapeer, Michigan will reveal there was once a large institution which had many aliases, including “The Michigan Home for the Feeble Minded and Epileptic.” So that was interesting. Obviously, I had to go there during my week off and learn more.

Driving to Lapeer reminded me of the ride between Chicago and St. Louis, with rolling rows of corn and soybeans rather than the winery and resort billboards on my usual drive through Michigan. I arrived to one of countless small towns in the rust belt that had fallen on hard times, with staple businesses surviving among a string of shuttered store fronts. My guide from the historical society was running late, so I had time to walk around and visit the local library. As I strolled about in business casual attire, a few cars slowed down to take a look at me, and someone asked who I was. I was waiting for a “You’re asking too many questions” moment from the Twilight Zone. The closest I got was someone mentioning they saw me in town and asking what I was doing while getting McDonald’s near the highway on the journey home.

My friend from the Historical Society graciously allowed me to look through their collection of documents and photos. From the Historical Society and the local library, I learned a lot about the institution that overshadowed the town from 1895 until 1992 (and also found a document that confirms my suspicions about the source of minors in the Anatomy lab from Lapeer). Most notably, the institution was a well known site in Michigan for forced sterilization. Even though Lapeer did have a strong hand in the dark history of Eugenics in Michigan, many sources from the community seem to gloss over this, which makes finding information about how people thought of the children in the institution in the early twentieth century (which is helpful for not only framing eugenics, but also the use of minors in the anatomy lab) harder.

I really began to wonder why people still talked about the Michigan State Home if this was a period of history that perhaps they wanted to forget. Many of the documents and articles from Lapeer romantically recall the institution as a sprawling community. The Historical Society’s 2013 Calendar was all about the Michigan State Home. The memory of the state home is still recalled, but framed in a way that wipes any mention of eugenics or sterilization. With the patient population peaking at 4,000 in the 1940's, perhaps the institution is celebrated because it provided monetary income and employment to the community. Like all historical accounts, the dominant narrative is not usually the complete picture of an event, but rather filtered through other interests and perceptions.

I found a source (records from a local funeral director at the Lapeer Public Library) that confirms many of the minors from the anatomy records are from the institution, but now comes the hard part: understanding why (both for legal and social reasons) institutionalized children were delivered to the University.