Something Different

I came across a history the other day by of a woman named Annie Kane. Annie never killed anyone, or robbed a stagecoach, and was not a member of the demimonde (though she did steal a horse once). In fact, Annie was a pretty regular girl until, in her early teens, the spectre of mental illness raised its fearsome head. Annie was most likely schizophrenic, as the symptoms she exhibited - delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, and disorganized behaviors - are consistent with the illness. The local press regularly recorded her episodes and Annie was committed several time to asylums in Stockton and Phoenix. Of course, there were no medicinal treatment for schizophrenia in the 1890s (the illness was not even named until 1911). Instead, patients were subject to confinement, restraint, purging, spinning, bloodletting, sedation, and the like. Annie was caught on a merry-go-round she could not get off - she would have an episode, be committed, be treated, seem to recover her senses, and be released, only to have the cycle begin again in a few months time. Annie ended her life in December of 1899 with an overdose of morphine. She was about twenty-two.

Authors of Old West histories rarely speak to mental illness and suicide, preferring more violent and salacious stories - gunfights, robberies, range wars, the Indian Wars, prostitution, and the like. I'm just as guilty as everyone else in this regard. Except for my book about Edna Loftus, these subjects are what I tend to write about as well. However, it gives people a distorted view of what the Old West was really like. Most people who crossed into the West were simply trying to survive. This is why I think stories like Annie's are important, as it reminds us of this fact. Annie's mother, Mrs. Kane lost her infant child and her husband in 1893. She lost her son, Eddie (like Annie, he was adopted) in 1897. She remarried, but her new husband turned out to be a saloon loafer, and they divorced with two years. All this is addition to dealing with Annie's mental illness. Still, Mrs. Kane persevered. This is the kind of story which needs to be written, as it keeps the genre of western writing grounded in reality. Of course, this is just my opinion. I have pitched the story to three publications - one was immediately interested, one became more interested after I mentioned Annie once stole a horse, committed arson, and gave Cochise County Sheriff Camillus Fly and Deputy Burt Alvord a very exciting time at the train depot in Maricopa on the way to the Territorial Insane Asylum in Phoenix (pictured here). Had to tie Annie in with some more recognizable names to give it appeal. Still waiting to hear from the third, although they will likely require a thesis of some kind.

  Anyway, I will keep you, my dear reader, apprised of my progress with Annie's story.