Elizabeth Packard: Incurably Insane? Part 2

In part 2 of our Elizabeth Packard tale, Gwen and Val continue to discuss the remarkable story of Elizabeth Packard. If you haven't listened to part 1, please do so!

Packard, who is largely forgotten to history,  was a pioneer in women and mental health advocacy and a true testament of resilience in the face of oppression.

Thanks for listening!

Thanks to Wendy Berry of Wendy Berry Arts for our original logo, and to Danielle of D’Lordes and their partner Siah for our theme song. 

Sources used:

The Woman They Could Not Silence, by Kate Moore

A Noble Fight, by Linda Carlisle

Mrs. Packard, by Emily Mann

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Hello. You sound so cheery, but um before we go any farther, I want you to take back what you said to me earlier. What did you do? What did you do? This is how you want to start it. Well, I just feel like we can't go any farther until you apologize. Because you called me a thilophilus. You called me a thilophilus. And I just think that that was so rude.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

Just want to explain why I called you a the one. I don't want to get into it. I just want a public apology. And you know who would do a similar thing? Theophilus.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Okay. All right. We're just going to You want to go there?

SPEAKER_02 1:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

No, I don't want to go there. I think we just need to move on. Okay. How are you? I'm doing well, actually. Notice that Delilah is on my lap because as soon as she hears your voice, she's got to be a part of things.

SPEAKER_03 1:31

Of course, how we see. She's doing well. Can you lift her little head so I can see her more? Hi, baby. Oh, okay. So okay. Okay. So you doing okay? Yeah. I was just thinking about um the week ahead and what I have to meal prep for it. I don't I don't know what I'm doing with my life this week. So if you have any ideas of what I should make for my for my meal.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

You're usually so good about doing all your meal prep on Sunday.

SPEAKER_03 2:09

I know. Yeah, I usually and I take Mondays because I don't work on Monday, so I usually take that day to do a lot of like um I actually have a bunch of like doctor's appointments for Monday. So that's why I'm kind of trying to do things today. But what are you? What are you doing for a meal for food?

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Um I I haven't thought that far either. And I have enough for like like my oatmeal for breakfast this week and salads for lunch, and I have no idea for dinner, but okay.

SPEAKER_03 2:45

Well, that was helpful. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

Oh my god, you're in a mood. All right. Okay, okay. I think we should just move on. I agree.

SPEAKER_03 2:57

And I'm excited because you left us on the biggest cliffhanger last month. Did I know? So this is part two of Elizabeth Packard.

unknown 3:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

And can we just sorry? Yeah, I was gonna say, well, when we left off last time, it was um with Elizabeth being released from the Jacksonville Insane Asylum and into her husband Theophilus' care on June 18, 1863.

SPEAKER_03 3:27

Okay, just real quick, how old is she at this point? She's in her 30s.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

So she should be about um 46 or 47. And so she's passed into her husband's care, and just envision for a moment how awkward the handoff has to be. The men, McFarland, the doctor, and Theophilus, the husband, are basically playing hot potato, right? And the hot potato landed with Theophilus, who can't toss it off again. So he goes and drags Elizabeth off to the train station. And at this point, McFarland's probably popping open a bottle of champagne and dancing on tables because he's gotten rid of the problem, is gone. Right, the demon or the fiend. But the women in the asylum really felt Elizabeth's loss. She has gone, one wrote, who watched with a quote, throbbing heart and fast gathering tears as Elizabeth departed. The patients held a kind of wake to talk out their grief at her departure. Even the staff were sorry to see her leave. We shall miss you, Mrs. Packard, at the asylum, said one, for there never has been a person who has caused such a universal sensation there as you have. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 4:55

It makes me sad and it's almost bittersweet in that she gained her quote unquote freedom again. But again, all of the women she left behind that will will stay.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Yes, but she will not forget them. Okay, that's good. So she was afraid that Theophilus would hustle her directly to another asylum at this point. But to her joy, he handed her off to her cousin Angeline. Do you remember Angeline? The one she was like, I do, I do, okay. Yeah, okay. And to Angeline's husband, David. My truest and kindest friends I have on earth, Elizabeth said. And they took her to their home in Granville, Illinois and doted upon her while she recovered from this idea. Oh my god. Right.

SPEAKER_03 5:46

So Davids are good eggs, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Yes. But how would you have recovered from this? You know, I I don't know how I would have taken this time of recuperation. But Elizabeth decided, quote, to think that the bliss of freedom so dear to me was not yet felt by those I left in bonds. Her anguish at her friends' continuing peril spurred Elizabeth to send letters to their families telling them about the treatment the women received, urging them to get the women out. And I'm sorry to say that little changed. A number of her friends lived in the asylum until the end of their lives. Although one brother did retrieve his sister after reading Elizabeth's letter. So Sam.

SPEAKER_03 6:47

Oh, it just kills me.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

I know. Elizabeth decided to take a chance and head back to Mantino after four months of staying with Angeline, spurred on by the ache for her children. The pain is unutterable, unspeakable, she wrote. Theophilus had warned her to stay away from them, but he had allowed her to go to Angeline's after her asylum release. So she hoped that maybe he had been reformed. What do you think?

SPEAKER_03 7:19

I'm scared. So he basically forbade her to see her kids.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Right. He said, okay, you can go off and live what her the rest of her life out with her cousin, but well, he didn't really care where she lived her life, but she was not to be a part of okay. So when she arrived at Mantino by train that day in November, a young boy was standing on the station platform and Elizabeth didn't know him. He was George, the little boy who had run alongside the train the day she had been abducted from her home. He was now 10. Elizabeth hadn't recognized him. She didn't recognize her home either. Both house and garden had become shabby and run down. Libby, her only daughter, had been age 11 when Elizabeth had left and had been expected to step into Elizabeth's role. And of course she couldn't do it. Not least because there was no money for repairs or maintenance. Theophilus had been ousted from his church because of his strict ways. And perhaps because of his treatment of Elizabeth, too. Okay. Wow. $4,000 in debt, which was quite a sum back then.

SPEAKER_02 8:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

And was living off the charity of family and sympathetic church members. So bum. He's a full bum. A gentlemanly bum. Sure. Theophilus allowed Elizabeth to live at the house. Okay. And nothing more. The older boys had left home, but when she saw her younger children, Libby, George, and five-year-old Arthur, for the first time in three and a half years, she said, Oh, excuse me, in for the first time in three years, she said, You are going to have a mother again. I have come to take care of you and hope we shall be very happy and never be separated again.

SPEAKER_05 9:28

No, no, no, no, mom.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

This was not Theopolis's vision. He ordered the children to ignore her. When she tried to boil in the water to clean the house, he pulled the saucepan off the stove. You shall heat no water upon my stove, he said. Things were a little tense. There was a standoff, and how long could it go on? Well, it lasted until the key caper, which broke things wide open and catapulted Elizabeth into a direction that she never could have imagined. A few weeks after her arrival home, a set of house keys vanished, pushing Theophilus over the edge. He just knew that Elizabeth had taken them. He searched her things, he searched the inside of the house. He searched the outside of the house, even combing through the shrubs. He strip searched Elizabeth. No keys. Seething, Theophilus locked her in the nursery, nailing the window shut to prevent her escape, and refusing to allow her a fire in the fireplace. Oh my god. In a time before central heat, in winter in Illinois. Even though she stoically accepted her situation, Theophilus was enraged. He struck her, dragged her by the hair, refused to allow anyone to see her. Then on January 9th, 1864, inexplicably, Theophilus allowed two of Elizabeth's friends to enter the freezing cold nursery to visit. He would come to regret this simple act of generosity. Oh yeah. Because he had played into the hands of Elizabeth. Because sending your wife to an asylum was legal in America in 1864, but imprisoning her at home was not. She also knew what her husband's reaction would be to the missing keys. Elizabeth had vanished the house keys herself. I love her, burying them outside. She had found Theophilus' correspondence showing that although the Zach the Jacksonville Asylum had respectfully declined to readmit her. Oh my god, this man! Another asylum, the Northampton Asylum in Massachusetts, was willing to take her on. Oh, that's terrifying. Hiding the keys was a gamble, but better a gamble, she thought, than the possibility of quote, lifelong entombment. Yeah. Elizabeth's friends, Nabby Hanford and Rebecca Blessing, had tried to get Elizabeth out of the asylum after her committal there, but to no avail. Now, though, after witnessing her imprisonment in her own home, they felt they could get something done for her. So later on that day of their visit, they were joined by their husbands and headed to a lawyer. The next morning, a court clerk knocked on Theophilus' door and handed him a writ of habeas corpus, which is essentially a legal action allowing detained individuals to challenge their imprisonment in a court. Okay. Oh, well, you can imagine what Theophilus thought.

SPEAKER_03 13:11

Sure, he was not very happy about this.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

And he was incensed. Four intermeddlers in town got out a rip of habeas corpus, he sees, as though I was falsely imprisoning her.

SPEAKER_03 13:24

Although, yeah, right. Okay, buddy. Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

So Theophilus's position was that he had the right to keep Elizabeth restrained because she was insane. Now he had to prove she was indeed insane. Insane. And he had doctors on his side. And he had history on his side as well because her father had institutionalized her. Elizabeth had to prove she wasn't insane. Which is so much harder to do. Well, the odds were stacked in Theophilus' favor. But one thing that she had that he did not have was desperation. If she couldn't prove she was sane, she would be immediately recommitted after the trial. So she had no choice but to win. Right. So each day of the trial in the Kankaki courthouse, the crowd swelled in size, drawn in part from the publicity in the newspapers, saying this was quote, one of the most remarkable cases ever brought before the judicial tribunal. People yelled encouragement to Elizabeth as she arrived at the courthouse each day. But her son Samuel sat in his father's corner of the court. Oh, fuck him. Well, they had to be hurtful to see, but Elizabeth couldn't have known then that he would eventually come to be an ardent supporter of hers. Okay. That he had inherited her gift of speech and persuasion and would become a lawyer and himself a reformer.

SPEAKER_03 15:00

Oh yay. Okay, sorry. Sorry, Samuel. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

Take it back. I take it back. Just as things seemed to be going Elizabeth's way, the decision was made. No, Mom. Although Dr. McFarlane wouldn't testify in person, his documentation on her history was allowed to be entered, including their certificate of insanity that he'd given to Theophilus. Oh, I hate this man. He was renowned and well respected. And his document or the documentation was a blow to her cause. But then Elizabeth took the stand. She read her essays. That's my girl. She drew all eyes, all ears, and every circle someone wrote. They fell under the spell of her marvelous power. That's right. She sounded not only sane, but intelligent, hopeful, refined. No way. Elizabeth had won over popular sentiment and anger against Theophilus grew. One particular day of the trial, mobs gathered at the train station waiting for him. But Theophilus got wind of their intent to harm him and did a no-show.

SPEAKER_03 16:22

Yeah, that's right, because he's a spineless. He was pretty spineless. Little scaredy cat. He was.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

On Monday, January 18th, Elizabeth arrived at court for the final days of the trial. Lawyers for both sides presented their arguments, and then her fate lay in the hands of the jury. Another man. In seven minutes, seven minutes, the jury made their decision. Elizabeth Packard was sane. She felt grateful joy. She could leave her children without the taint of madness between them. Oh strangers were almost as happy as she was. The judge couldn't contain the applause exploding through the courtroom.

SPEAKER_03 17:13

Oh, this feels so good. This feels so good. I can't imagine what she must be feeling in this moment to tell you. No. Stop. No, I actually no. I'm sorry. We're ending the podcast here. We're ending it here. I don't need to know anything more.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

No, honey. I don't need to know anything more. This is where the story ends.

SPEAKER_03 17:40

No, it is because it is. This is exactly where the story ends. Because you know what happens? The mob goes up to Theophilus Thistle and they tear him limb by limb and until he's eviscerated. And then they carry her out on their shoulders, chanting her name. And then the mob carries her back to the asylum and they bust open the doors and they free all the women from the asylum. And then they go up to that doctor. And they also take his head and pop it off his body like a Lego. Stop! What the hell? What do you mean?

SPEAKER_01 18:18

I'm just telling you what's not reality. Yes, because even before she could leave the courthouse, Elizabeth was handed a letter by a stranger. And the letter was from Theophilus, who hadn't attended the trial that day. And better things to do. He took the kids. He had flown the coop, gone to Massachusetts, and had taken the children with him. So Elizabeth raced back home to Montino, and an unknown man answered the door. He said he was renting the house. All her things inside were gone.

SPEAKER_03 18:59

No, mother.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

She discovered that her furniture, which she had purchased with money from her father years before, was being stored at Theophilus' sister's home.

SPEAKER_03 19:10

Who is this woman, by the way? Let me speak to his sister, who is complicit in all of this. Let me speak to her.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Well, Elizabeth asked her lawyers if she could reclaim the furniture. They said that because she was a married woman, she could not. Yes. And that's you can hold nothing, they said. You are nothing and nobody in the law. I'm thinking about that poetry. So I'm nobody who are you. Are you nobody too? Yes.

SPEAKER_03 19:44

And apparently she is. And this also goes back to a doll's house where she says that everything she had been doing as an unmarried woman when she thought that Torvald had filed for divorce, everything she had built for herself, the money she made, the name she made for herself, the books that she had written, her belongings, everything belongs to him. Everything. So even if a woman leaves her husband in these situations, no matter what, she will never be free. She has Elizabeth has won quote unquote her freedom again, but she's still not free. And you would think that if she after she won her case that she wasn't insane, that there had to be some sort of legal repercussions against him for defamation at least. It was around the same time. Well yeah, 18.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

Why don't you look that up?

SPEAKER_03 20:53

Yeah, I am. So then she asked the judge 1879. So this is around the same time if you write a little bit later, but not much.

SPEAKER_02 21:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

So then Elizabeth asked the lawyers if she could get her children back, and they said, no, the children are all the husbands after what they call the tender age. And some judges defined the tender age as after the age of seven, and some judges define this as after being weaned. So Theophilus had thwarted her. So here she is at 47. She's homeless, penniless, and without her children. She wrote that she felt death agonies that ripped her soul and body asunder. But that level of despair wasn't enough for the men in her life. The jury's decision that she was sane infuriated both Theophilus and Dr. Andrew McFarlane. Got over it. They began a PR campaign in the papers throughout the country, smearing Elizabeth and declaring that the jury had made a sham verdict. And the men made gains in the public perception.

unknown 22:17

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

Elizabeth determined that she would fight back, not just for herself, but for the people she had left behind in the asylum. Where does she get her spirit? Because at this point, she has to feel the weight of the this burden of always trying to justify her position when there is just so much oppression.

SPEAKER_03 22:44

Yeah. She spent her whole adult life fighting.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

So regardless of what the jury had decided, she feels like she still needs to prove that she's not insane. And she also needed money. And she hoped to both vindicate herself and support herself through her writing. Using the last of the money from her Granville friends, she headed to Chicago, her first time ever in the city, to visit a publisher to print her story. She found the prices way beyond her means. So what she did next was brilliant. We would call it crowdfunding. She sold tickets for her book in advance of the publication. She had to convince 1,400 people to believe in her. Wow. And our girl went door to door, town to town, selling those tickets. Now, I don't know if I made it clear that when she finally left her cousinslash sister in Granville, that the people in Granville had fallen in love with her and had collected money for her, for her, not only for her train fare to get back to Mantino, but also there was extra left over. And so this is what she used.

SPEAKER_03 24:09

So wherever she went, people loved her.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

Yes. Yes. So she went door to door, town to town, selling the tickets, and she realized that people were compelled by her story. By May 1864, she had accrued enough money to pay for the publication of her book, which she called The Exposure. And that flew out the door in March 1866. She published a follow-up, Marital Power Exemplified. Another hit. And she finally had her own money. A lot of it. And Gwen, you're not gonna believe what she did. Okay, tell me. She used that money to pay off Theophilus.

SPEAKER_03 24:57

I hate of course she did. You know why? You know why? Because she is a good person. She is a good person, and what she knew that it would benefit her children. But also, I have to say, also brilliant, because what would hit a man's ego more than a woman paying off of his debt? That had to hurt. That had to be such a blow that after all of this, after him trying so hard to stamp her out, not only did she get away, not once, not twice, but three times, win it legally, and then become successful in her own doing, making enough money to then pay off his debt.

SPEAKER_01 25:51

Yep. And he never acknowledged that she did that for him. So then she used the rest of the money to use um for travel as she lobbied for changes in legislature. Her experience with crowdfunding made her fearless as she lobbied men in power. And this again, this is what before women had the right to vote. And she really wasn't even thinking about guaranteeing women's right to vote. That was a separate battle. She really just wanted men to be women's protectors, and so she was on a charm offensive. And she was um she was successful because she was she was going through and making some allies. Yeah, she was close to achieving her most ambitious reform, the right for asylum patients to receive mail, sometime in the 1870s. She had worked hard for it. She had lobbied President Grant at the White House, and it was looking really promising. But then Mr. McFarland was coming back. He got wind of things and made a trip to Washington, DC just to tell everyone there she was insane.

SPEAKER_03 27:14

And the building hasn't he died of syphilis at this point. My gosh like run him over with their horse and buggy. That's wow. Okay. What you didn't want me to give what's as fuck some kind thoughts about the lemons, but now that I'm the opposite. I can't win with you. I can't win with you. What do you want from me? Okay, so he goes to lobby his stupid little face in front of what the president.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

Okay, but anyways, so the bill did not pass. But I I do want to put a pin in Elizabeth's history right now and look at some of the other people involved in this story. You were talking about McFarland. And I mean, were there any winners happening? You know, it was anybody winning right now with all of this put into play where where the men were under such threat that Elizabeth had been deemed competent and sane. Um, and the levels that they were willing to go to to prove her not sane. So Dr. Andrew McFarland, excuse me, faced some headwinds himself later in life. His second wife left him, citing both mental and physical abuse.

SPEAKER_03 28:45

Well, I mean, not laughing at that, but like laughing that he got left.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

He had a serious fall, which affected his disposition as well as some financial troubles.

SPEAKER_02 28:55

Oh, poor, poor, poor boy.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

Elizabeth was successful in getting his asylum investigated. Good. After the investigation, some wanted McFarland fired, but the trustees prevailed in keeping him in place as superintendent.

SPEAKER_03 29:12

So, you know, it was because a man can only be successful exactly, because they will have other men surrounding them to protect them.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

And remember when I mentioned in our last episode that another well-known woman had also studied spiritualism and had faced the threat of commitment to an asylum like Elizabeth? That was Mary Todd Lincoln. Lincoln's widow. Wow, I didn't know that. Even after the investigation of McFarland's asylum, and his reputation had taken something of a hit after that investigation. Her son Robert had considered committing her to an asylum because the understanding of grief just wasn't there. Her husband had been killed in an assassination. In front of her. And she had lost three of her sons.

SPEAKER_03 30:14

Oh my god. And then to be betrayed by your living son has to just be like salt on the wound.

SPEAKER_01 30:23

Although I don't know that he felt it was a betrayal. It sounds from what I've read that he really was uh afraid for for her her thinking she was spending a lot of money and making reckless decisions. But again, there was no a connect the dot kind of thing between something that she'd gone to through and uh grief.

SPEAKER_03 30:50

It also sounds like there isn't really an uh anything in between that these men could turn to. You know, it sounds like also speaking of trauma, like these men have also experienced trauma. Like this young son has had his father murdered and his siblings and seeing his mom in this situation. Like, I'm sure he felt desperate, and like what else did he have to turn to? So I'm not fully um, they think they're doing the right thing.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

I I believe that Robert actually did feel he was doing the right thing, and same with Elizabeth's father.

SPEAKER_03 31:31

Like, I do think he felt like he was doing the best thing he could for her, um, but not Theophilus.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

Theophilus was motivated mostly by spite and yeah, from what I think. Yeah, yeah. So McFarlane's opinion was that Mary Todd Lincoln had a quote, helpless and irresponsible state of mind and should be committed. But fortunately, Robert decided to ignore McFarlane's recommendation. Okay, go on. In 1891, Andrew McFarlane hanged himself. Oh isn't that just I mean, it's a tragic conclusion. It's it just gives you so many questions about what was he doing. Was he really all in with his antagonism towards Elizabeth? Like what else was going on there? Just very strange. Um, but Elizabeth, even dealing with legislative disappointments, she pressed on. After nine years, she gained custody of her children. Nine years. But so much damage had been done to the relationships, to the children. Two of her sons later committed suicide. Her daughter Libby, who had been forced to run the household after Elizabeth's commitment to the asylum, ended up in an asylum herself after Elizabeth's death. So just think of that. Three generations of women in that family had faced charges of some degree of mental instability. Lucy, you know, Elizabeth's mom.

SPEAKER_02 33:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

Elizabeth herself, and Libby. Although I think in Libby's case, she really was a troubled soul. I think there were some definite things going on there. Theophilus, who had lived his last years in a room at his sister's house, died in December 1885, age 83. And here we go. His biggest fear that his wife's quote irreligious influence might be held against him on Judgment Day. Can you believe this guy? I mean, it's all about him. Her irreligious influence. But if there is a winner in this story, it is Elizabeth. For the rest of her life, following her trial, Elizabeth traveled the world campaigning, giving political speeches, and writing her books. She effectively passed 34 bills for the rights of the mentally ill. She died at age 85 on July 25th, 1897. Her death was reported all across the county, excuse me, all across the country.

SPEAKER_02 34:31

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 34:31

Today she's not very well known, although a mental health center in Springfield, Illinois, that was originally named after McFarland was renamed the Elizabeth Packard Mental Health Center in 2023. As it should, as it should. Elizabeth said, and she did. She really did. Wow. So there were 446 people committed in the Jacksonville Asylum in 1864, and this was taken from a ledger. There are all these different categories. One was domestic trouble. There were 33 people committed under that category. Two was religious excitement. There were 32 people committed under that category. Business anxiety, 16, death of friends, 13, pure peril, uh, which is relating to or occurring during childbirth or the period immediately following, like a postpartum. Could you imagine? 22. Like who's taking care of the baby if the mother is institutionalized? Disappointed love, 15, over exertion, 13, vicious indulgences. I want to know more about that. 25. Spiritualism. Remember, we talked about spiritualism. Eight people were committed to the asylum because of their interest in spiritualism. Hard study, eight, physical injury, seven, change of life, which I don't know. Does that mean menopause? Does that mean oh, that's a good point. Yeah, that means of career. I like what does that mean? But there were three people committed under that sun stroke.

SPEAKER_03 36:36

You know, you it's well, actually, that makes sense, remember? Because that's why she originally got committed with the brain. Because the yeah, the brain fever was caused by like too much heat or whatever. Intemperance five, novel reading three. Classic. That's gonna come back in this day and age. Anyone who reads books, any woman. Sorry, I keep going.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

Fear seven, brain fever two, epilepsy twelve. That's tragic. Paralysis six, hereditary nineteen, and unknown 195.

SPEAKER_03 37:21

Unknown meaning we don't have any diagnosis that we can label on them. I just wanted to say thank you so much. This was really I really enjoyed this one, and I feel like I'll be thinking about her for a long time, and she's really hasn't inspired me.

SPEAKER_01 37:40

Inspiring, yes.

SPEAKER_03 37:41

Very and would you would you get a drink with Elizabeth Packard?

SPEAKER_01 37:49

Well, again, she was um rather a revolutionary soul, but I still think she would have gone with the tepid water. Yeah. So I would have tepid water with her just because I admire her so much. And I would like to know her thought process for when she was facing those bleak black moments. What got her going to dust herself off and to start again? Because I think in many of these circumstances, I would have slumped in a corner and just contemplated my navel. I don't know that I could have gotten myself up. Yeah. And and faced the next hurdle. I mean, was it her faith? Was it just some like inner fountain of determination? I would love to know what she would have to say.

SPEAKER_03 38:53

Yeah, I agree. I would love to sit with her and really listen to all of her stories about her time in the asylum. And in fact, we should, I want to like read her books. I'm really curious. I'd love to read her writing.

SPEAKER_01 39:09

Yes, I think that a couple of them may not be easy reads simply because she wasn't a trained writer, and although she was very smart, and I think the standards for writing were very high back then, but I think that some of her writing was stream of consciousness and not necessarily um chronological. So they might be a little bit tough to read, but have at it and let me know. Yeah, yeah. My well. And anyways, after a conversation with her, maybe we would find a way to flip flip the script.

SPEAKER_03 39:59

Well, on that note, we have some thank yous. We would like to thank Wendy Berry of Wendy Berry Arts for our amazing logo, Danielle of Dolores, and their partner Saya, who did the amazing music, the original music for us, and William Torrance for producing and listening to our crazy ramblings and editing us to make us sound oh so smart.

SPEAKER_02 40:30

Or at least coherent.

SPEAKER_03 40:32

Or at least coherent. Okay, well, we'll catch you on the next one.

SPEAKER_01 40:38

Sounds good. Thanks for listening. Bye. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 40:43

Hey everyone, Will here. Thanks for listening to another episode of the Folly Chronicles. We really hope you enjoyed this special two-parter on Elizabeth Packard. Sources used for this episode are The Woman They Could Not Silence by Kate Moore, A Noble Fight by Linda Carlisle, and Mrs. Packard by Emily Mann. Consider supporting your local and national women's organizations such as UN Women, which champions equality and empowerment for all women, and support candidates for office that run on platforms of inclusion and equality. You can also consider running for office if you're able to. If you feel strongly about something, make your voice heard. That's it for us in this one, and we will see you next time.