Sam Edney’s family has lived in Henderson County for eight generations. When we’re out driving he often tells me that over there used to be a cabbage field in winter snow, or here in this lake by the bridge he learned to swim as a boy. I enjoy these stories and now when we pass the development on Old Kanuga Road, for instance, I can imagine the Rickel Farm that it was in the 1950’s and ‘60’s.
In the early 1900’s when Sam’s uncle Elbert Anders was about fourteen, some drinking men spooked the horse he was riding. It fell on him and he limped for the rest of his life. His horse in the picture below was named Maude.
Around 1920 Sam’s grandfather Elbert Lindsey Anders thought a job in electricity would be secure employment, so he sent his son Elbert to the Coyne Electrical School in Chicago to learn the trade.
Sam has one of Elbert’s exams.
From the family letters Sam has, he thinks his grandmother Lucy King Anders enlisted her children to write to their brother in Chicago. All was going well until suddenly Elbert stopped writing. The family’s letters to him were coming back unopened. Elbert had disappeared from the Electrical School without a trace.
Elbert’s father was well known in Henderson County. A while after Elbert’s disappearance from the school in Chigago, some men were squirrel hunting on Long John Mountain (off present day Highway 191). They came to tell Mr. Anders they had found his son camping out up there. They said that when they asked Elbert why he didn’t go home, he told them, “They would get my family.”
It became clear that he suffered from schizophrenia and arrangements were made for him to live at Broughton Hospital in Morganton.
I’m telling you this story because it has a happy ending. Elbert was familiar with dairy farming and worked successfully at the dairy on the hospital campus the rest of his long life, apparently with self-respect and perhaps even happiness.
His nephew W. L. Ray inspected large herds of cattle for the NC Agricultural Department. Every quarter when he came to inspect the dairy at Broughton he would visit with Elbert, bringing him news from home.
There’s one more part to this story. In the early 1950’s his mother Lucy received a letter from Broughton asking her to allow their doctors to perform on Elbert a brand-new promising and popular operation. She refused to let them do it. Later, lobotomy proved to be a tragic cure and was soon ended. Her son was safe.
P. S. Sam tells me that after W. L.’s wife became a post mistress, Elbert’s mother Lucy wrote to tell him that leaving three pennies in the mailbox would no longer be acceptable. He would have to go buy the stamp!
Nancy, your great aunt's story is heart wrenching, when you think of her struggles in life, some of them seemingly needless. It reminds us to encourage the talents of others, and to try to understand each other. Thank you.
What an interesting story! My great aunt was lobotomized at Broughton, horrible procedure to make her more compliant (she was not mentally ill, just depressed because as an artist she was not permitted any outlets). Good thing Elbert escaped. Thanks for sharing the story and photos.