Somewhere in her mind she realized Lucy was gathering the guests and shooing them out the door. She smelled her mother’s perfume and felt several pairs of strong hands carrying her upstairs to her bed. She heard the sound of her children begging to get in, to see Mommy, and she prayed that no one would let them. Prayed that she could hide under the blankets forever. Because she couldn’t face any of these people ever again.
PART 1
RUTH: 1933–36
Chapter One
Ruth approached the large brick edifice and swung open the ornate wrought-iron gate. It was difficult to ignore her family’s name carved into the strip of black iron that sat at eye level, but she did her best. As far as she was concerned, she was simply an employee of this hospital.
Inside the gates, the exterior courtyard was filled with trees, their leaves just beginning to show signs of vibrant reds, purples, and golds. In the next few weeks, this space would transform from a summer garden into a colorful autumnal sanctuary for new patients and their families. Emeraldine Hospital might be a public institution right in the middle of New York City, but from its inception, her family made sure that it wouldn’t feel like those cold, dark public asylums with their peeling paint, dim lighting, and stacked beds. They had created something new: a public hospital for the insane with the care and amenities of a private country retreat, a direct relationship to a medical school, and a first-class research facility.
It was something of a miracle that her father, Bernard Emeraldine, son of the great industrialist Thomas Emeraldine, was as passionate about this new hospital as Ruth was. Really, it was the one cause they were aligned on, even though her interest in science and medicine did come from him. It was his idea, after all, to create a hospital that would treat people of all classes with first-rate care. That was why he chose to give a million-dollar endowment to the New York Hospital for the Insane （now renamed Emeraldine）， instead of the luxurious Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic, where her brother, Harry, had been a patient after the Great War.
Back then, Ruth was so devoted to her brother’s care that she hadn’t paid much attention to her father’s hospital project. She hadn’t paid much attention to anything, really, having stepped aside from her work with the suffragists, to her father’s delight. She had even failed to turn up for her former fiancé, Lawrence, so frequently that he had ultimately given up on her, marrying one of her more available classmates from Mount Holyoke instead.
Only when they lost Harry did this hospital become her mission. While Bernard and her mother, Helen, appropriately mourned the loss of their son, receiving visitors and taking a pause from their day-to-day life, Ruth made herself busier than ever. She channeled her grief into ensuring that her family’s unprecedented endowment went toward the creation of a premier research and care facility. To hopefully spare other families the pain of unnecessarily losing one of their own.
Looking back, Ruth was surprised her father had permitted her to step in and work directly with Charles Hayden, the new superintendent. Though she suspected that her father thought the subordinate position would keep her occupied until her next beau came along, Ruth had immediately made herself indispensable. Now, more than a decade later, as assistant superintendent, she spent her time overseeing the day-to-day details of the hospital’s operations, helping to keep track of the patients’ progress, and even assisting in hiring decisions. Emeraldine Hospital had become her life’s work. Or, more accurately, it had become her life.
With Harry gone, the hospital was all Ruth had. Even now, with the hindsight that her dedication couldn’t have saved Harry from himself, Ruth still would have devoted herself fully to the hospital. Yes, she was thirty-four years old and undoubtedly on her way to becoming a spinster. But she had her hospital. Her patients. And every day, as she made her way up First Avenue, she felt a quiet hope that she was destined for something bigger. To change outcomes for all sorts of families. To find a better way to care for, and possibly even cure, the insane.
As she walked inside, past the redbrick entrance with its high ceilings and large arched windows, down the long hallway, carpeted with bright oriental rugs and illuminated with crystal chandeliers, she felt proud that she had helped make this a place where all patients received the highest standard of care. With its warm wood floors, open courtyards, and even a proper ballroom for dancing, Emeraldine Hospital felt like a home instead of an institution, a place where real healing could occur.