- Membership |
- Shop |
- Calendar |
- Donate
A resource for reliable information about significant people, places, events, and things in Minnesota history.
Anna Salzer’s cemetery marker in Calvary Cemetery (Rochester). Photograph by Alison Bergblom Johnson, 2024.
When Anna Salzer died while a patient at Rochester State Hospital in 1897, her death was first reported as the result of heart failure after a twelve-hour illness. Later, the cause of death was changed to pneumonia. But another patient, Lydia B. Angier, reported details about Salzer’s death to officials, writing that “every day I saw her abused—shoved about—and on the last day actually kicked.” The incident reveals how abuse contributed to excess mortality among patients confined to insane hospitals at the turn of the twentieth century.
Anna Salzer, a fifty-five-year-old widow and immigrant born in Austria, was also the mother of three children, the youngest aged twenty-one. She arrived at Rochester State Hospital from Waseca County on the same day (June 22, 1897) she was committed, brought by sheriff’s deputy G. Goodspeed and admitted by Dr. R. M. Phelps at 6:45 pm.
According to hospital records, Salzer believed relatives and her physician were trying to poison her. Although she was “disposed to injure others,” she was “not suicidal, filthy or destructive.” After examining her on June 23, Dr. Phelps and his wife, Dr. Sarah Linton Phelps, noted Salzer was complaining “almost constantly” of pain in her back. Nurses perceived that Salzer was physically healthy and active and that she spoke to them in English, but they also noticed that she had vague delusions.
In August, Salzer was moved to a convalescing ward. At first, Dr. Linton Phelps noted that she ate well. Then, on September 5, she reported that Salzer had not eaten in two days, had been fed with a tube, and was “failing.” At 8 am on September 6, Dr. Linton Phelps wrote, “patient died suddenly.”
St. Paul resident Lydia B. Angier was also a patient in Rochester State Hospital in 1897. Angier wrote at least three letters to Agent W. A. Gates of the board of Corrections and Charities, a governing body of the state hospital system. One letter referred to Salzer. On July 19, 1898, Angier described a German-speaking woman who was admitted in June 1897 in good physical health. By September, however, all other patients on the ward who spoke German were gone, and the woman had stopped eating. Angier wrote that “...every day I saw her abused—shoved about—and on the last day actually kicked.” Staff then dragged Salzer “to her bed and left [her] alone to die. She died at seven o’clock next morning. I was with her about ten minutes before she died.”
Angier wrote to Gates that she had told Superintendent Dr. A. F. Kilbourne on November 9 that hospital staff were abusing Salzer in the days prior to her death. “He investigated,” Angier told Gates, “and attendant and Dr. Linton [Phelps] were laid off. Three children to care for—was a good excuse for dismissing Dr. Linton [Phelps].”
There is no evidence that Salzer’s death received further attention from officials within or without the state hospital after 1897. Angier’s allegations of abuse complicate the hospital’s claims to reform in the 1890s, carried out after the 1889 homicide of patient Taylor Combs. In 1909, an independent investigation revealed that hospital staff had been drunk and abusive with patients, leading to the firing of nurses.
114.B.11.4F
Annual and biennial reports, 1876–1959
Rochester State Hospital
State Archives Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: See “Tenth Biennial Report of the Board of Trustees and Officers of the Minnesota Hospitals for the Insane at St. Peter, Rochester, and Fergus Falls, to the Governor of the State of Minnesota for the Biennial Period Ending July 31, 1898.”
http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/gr01011.xml
SAM 213
Case files index, ca. 1871–1951
Waseca County Probate Court
State Archives Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: This index references case file number, estate name, name of administrator/executor, date commenced, and volume and page of register entry. It can be used to verify that a case file existed, although the index on roll 60, a card index prepared by the Genealogical Society of Utah during microfilming, does not include her. See also the microfilmed probate court case files (cataloged separately). Salzer is case number 1908 on page 477 of vol. 1.
Death record of Dr. Sarah Linton Phelps. Minnesota death record cards, 1903 Murray–Roseau, roll 28, frame 803.
http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/deaths02.pdf
109.I.6.8F
Letters received, 1897–1900
State Board of Corrections and Charities
State Archives Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: Letters received by W. A. Gates, agent for the board in matters relating to the determination of residence (and thus, liability for payment for the support) of indigent or insane residents of Minnesota. Letters from Lydia B. Angier to Mr. Gates are in folder A; the letter in which Angier relates Salzer’s death is dated June 19, 1898. No letters related to Anna Salzer are in folder S, or in folder W under Waseca.
114.B.11.14F
Letters sent: notifications of death, 1893–1918
Superintendent’s Office correspondence, 1885–1961
Rochester State Hospital
State Archives Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: Correspondence concerning hospital administration and facilities, patients, medical matters, relations with other hospitals and with supervisory agencies, nurses’ training, deaths and discharges, supplies and equipment, personnel, and the superintendent’s professional affiliation. In Letters Sent: notifications of death 1893–1918, on page 378, there is a copy of a letter notifying the probate judge of Waseca County of Anna Salzer’s death. Salzer’s death is also described in letters written by Lydia B. Angier in box 114.B.15.4 (F) and described as patient correspondence, mainly unarranged, ca. 1896–1900s, within a folder labeled “selection of interesting patient letters.”
http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/gr01029.xml
114.B.10.16F
Obituary record books (1879–1947)
Obituary/cemetery record, 1879–1947
Rochester State Hospital
State Archives Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: Details the people who died and/or were buried at the hospital. Information recorded in the obituary records may include death date, patient name, sex, age, marital status, occupation, nativity, from which county sent, form of disease on admission, number of attack, number of admission, case number, admission date, period of residence, total duration of disease, cause of death, and disposal of remains. Anna Salzer’s death is recorded as one of two deaths assigned the number 917 in the 1879–1916 obituary record, which contains an index and an 1885 plat map. Salzer does not appear in the index.
114.B.20.7B
Patient case books, 1879–1903
Rochester State Hospital
State Archives Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: Personal and medical histories of each patient admitted to the hospital, with updates during their stay. Anna Salzer is case number 4792 in vol. 34, Women, December 15, 1896–September 24, 1897. See also the record for Lydia B. Angier (case no. 4577) in vol. 30, Women, October 22, 1895–November 2, 1896.
http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/gr01024.xml
Amdur, M. K. “A Psychiatric Bulletin in Minnesota of Half a Century Ago: A Chapter of Psychiatric Journalistics.” Minnesota Medicine 25, no. 9 (September 1942), 732–735. Available at the Minnesota Historical Society library as R11 .M6 v.25:9.
Anna Salzer Waldhauser. Find A Grave.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/113618373/anna-waldhauser
“Hospital Investigation.” Rochester Post, October 4, 1889.
https://www.mnhs.org/newspapers/lccn/sn85025571/1889-10-04/ed-1/seq-2
“Insane Hospital Appointments.” Rochester Post, November 15, 1889.
https://www.mnhs.org/newspapers/lccn/sn85025571/1889-11-15/ed-1/seq-2
“Local and Personal.” Waseca Journal, September 14, 1897.
"Minnesota, County Deaths, 1850–2001." Entry for Ann Salzer, September 6, 1897. Rochester, Olmsted, Minnesota, United States records.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QPC3-DM36
Nelson, Paul. "Homicide at Rochester State Hospital, 1889." MNopedia, Minnesota Historical Society, August 14, 2014.
http://www.mnopedia.org/event/homicide-rochester-state-hospital-1889
“Passed Away.” Post and Record (Rochester, MN), June 26, 1903.
https://www.mnhs.org/newspapers/lccn/sn90060314/1903-06-26/ed-1/seq-2
Resman, Michael. Asylums, Treatment Centers and Genetic Jails: A History of Minnesota’s State Hospitals. North Star Press of St. Cloud, 2013.
Sacred Heart Church, Waseca. Personal communication with the author, May 28, 2024, and November 14, 2024.
[Writer’s note: Calvary Cemetery is in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Winona–Rochester. According to the church, “The Diocese of Winona–Rochester does not maintain sacramental records. For the purposes of genealogy research, please contact the local parish where records are kept.” The local parish in this instance is Sacred Heart of Waseca. The church secretary relayed to me that any information they may have regarding Anna Salzer is nonpublic.]
“Visited New York: Secretary Jackson and Agent Gates, of the State Board.” St. Paul Globe, June 1, 1898.
[No title]. Waseca County Herald, September 10, 1897.
[No title.] Waseca Radical, September 8, 1897.
 |
 |
 |
Anna Salzer, a patient at Rochester State Hospital, stops eating in September 1897. She believes her family has been poisoning her, and a fellow patient observes that no other patients remain on the ward who speak German, Salzer’s native language. Salzer is then tube fed. She dies on September 6, and her death is initially listed as heart failure.
Patient Taylor Combs dies at Rochester State Hospital in an incident later ruled to be manslaughter. Afterward, investigators recommend that the hospital hire a female physician, among other reforms.
On November 15, the Rochester Post reports that Dr. Sarah V. Linton has been appointed “physician in charge of the female department of the Rochester Hospital” for the Insane.
On June 22, the judge of probate for Waseca County commits Anna Salzer to Rochester State Hospital.
On September 5, Dr. Linton (by now Dr. Linton Phelps) notes that Salzer has refused to eat for the last two days, and that she has been tube fed.
On September 6, Salzer dies in Rochester State Hospital. The cause of her death is recorded in the obituary record book as heart failure; no psychiatric diagnosis is provided. Her death is one of two numbered as the 917th.
Rochester State Hospital’s medical superintendent writes to the Waseca County judge of probate on September 7 to notify him of Salzer’s death.
On September 7, Salzer’s body is brought to Waseca, and the next day a funeral is held at the Catholic church. She is buried in Calvary Cemetery with an ornate headstone.
On October 1, Salzer's death is reported to the city of Rochester City and listed in its death records.
On November 11, another patient, Lydia B. Angier, reports Salzer’s death to Dr. A. F. Kilbourne, superintendent of the hospital. She describes a patient surrounded by employees, kicked, and dying days later.
In February, Dr. Linton Phelps resigns her position.
On June 19, Angier writes to W. A. Gates, agent of the Board of Corrections and Charities, describing the death of a fellow patient on September 6, 1897, after an attack by staff.
In the July 31 biennial report of Minnesota’s three hospitals for the insane, Anna Salzer’s death is listed (with only her case number). Her cause of death is described as “pneumonia, lobar,” and chronic mania is her diagnosis.
On July 31, Angier writes to Gates again: “I hardly know what I sent you [on June 19]—fact is I talk on paper when I get nervous—and try to make the world remember us. If my words sound a little insane, I write no lie.”
Dr. Linton Phelps dies of tuberculosis on June 21 in Rochester.
Made possible by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund through the vote of Minnesotans on November 4, 2008. Administered by the Minnesota Historical Society.
Minnesota Historical Society • 345 W. Kellogg Blvd., St. Paul, MN 55102-1906 (Map) • 651-259-3000 © MNHS.
Send questions or comments to mnopedia![[at]](/sites/all/modules/spamspan/image.gif){kind=small}
mnhs [dot] org. View our Privacy Policy.
