“I do not think you will remain but a few days longer,”52 he said reassuringly to his new friend.
CHAPTER 9
In the wake of McFarland’s announcement, Elizabeth found the asylum rules relaxed around her until she felt more like a hotel boarder than a patient. Though there was a rule that patients must put their clothes out of their rooms each night before being locked in—a precaution taken to limit the success of any midnight flights—Elizabeth was exempt. She kept her clothes in her own room, able to dress how and when and where she wished. She freely borrowed books from the hospital library, made abundant use of stationery to write as she pleased, and even dined occasionally at the doctors’ table. Incredibly, she was also gifted her own set of ward keys and allowed out without an attendant. Such was the trust in her, she became almost like a matron, accompanying other patients on local jaunts without an overseer, the reins of the asylum omnibus clutched loosely in her hands. Indisputably, she had become the “Asylum favorite”1 and was treated with “almost queen-like attention”;2 another doctor noted she “had liberty other patients did not enjoy.”3 But she’d seemingly impressed McFarland so much in their early appointments with “her consummate tact and adroitness”4 that the superintendent saw fit to grant these privileges.
One afternoon in late June, Elizabeth decided to spend her time sewing. This was encouraged for all the women in her ward as part of what doctors later called industrial therapy. Though ostensibly organized for the patients’ benefit, the work they did was essential to the hospital’s economic efficiency. Patients were employed, without pay, not only in the sewing room but also on the farm, in the laundry and kitchens, and as housemaids or carpenters, with the allocation of labor divided along class and gender lines.
Elizabeth was a truly expert seamstress. At home, she’d not only made her children’s clothes but created her own designs—claret merino capes and black velvet tunics, lovingly lined with dove-colored silk. Her tasks in the asylum were somewhat different but no less challenging. The upper-class women in the sewing room made and maintained all the bedding, furnishings, and clothing required for the entire asylum; the latter alone saved McFarland $1,000 （about $31,000） each year. Over a two-year period ending December 1860, Elizabeth and her friends made—among many thousands of other items—997 pillowcases, 873 chemises, and 767 dresses. In addition, they mended 3,105 shirts and 1,007 pairs of socks.5
Records show the women even made their own restraining jackets.
Busy as it was, Elizabeth liked the quiet industry. The spacious workroom was located four stories up and had unbarred windows, which allowed for greater sunshine to stream into the room. She was also a fan of Priscilla Hosmer, the sewing room’s forty-five-year-old directress, whom she came to describe as “my best friend.”6 Priscilla’s sister had once been committed to an asylum—in New Hampshire, where McFarland himself had treated her—so she had genuine empathy for the patients. As most attendants did, Mrs. Hosmer slept on site, so she was always there whenever Elizabeth took up her needle and whiled away the hours.
So engrossed was Elizabeth in her handiwork that afternoon that for once, she didn’t stir when a carriage drew up outside the hospital in a percussive patter of horses’ hooves. Previously, she’d watched the front drive like a hawk. After all, her Manteno friends had vowed they’d try to get her out “in a few days.”7 So it was to her surprise when an attendant came to summon her: Elizabeth had visitors in the reception room.
The Blessings, from Manteno, had come at last.
Yet Isaac and Rebecca Blessing, both in their forties, were not alone. They’d invited Dr. Shirley of Jacksonville too. It’s possible they wanted an expert opinion to refute the certificates of Newkirk and Knott. After a stimulating conversation with Elizabeth, Shirley pronounced, “She is the sanest person I ever saw.” 8
There followed an afternoon full of friendship. Keys in hand, Elizabeth showed the Blessings around the hospital. They seemed astonished at her liberty, and Elizabeth confided that any privations she’d suffered at the start of her stay “did not begin to equal what I endured in one day’s time at home from my husband.”9
The Blessings, having seen firsthand the way she had been hounded, agreed wholeheartedly. Yet it prompted them to ask whether Elizabeth wanted to go back.
“Indeed I do,”10 she said emphatically. She longed to be reunited with her children. “But,” she added, “I must be protected from my husband.”11