MONROE - Thirty-nine deceased mental hospital patients finally were publicly identified in June after a monument with the names of the interred was erected upon their unmarked graves.
The 39 dead were former patients of the Green County Mental Hospital, a mental facility that was replaced in 1969 by the Pleasant View Nursing Home. The deceased were buried north of the Pleasant View complex between 1934 and 1950.
Until this year, the graves were marked only by Roman numerals.
Green County Clerk Mike Doyle began raising $4,000 in October 2016 to erect a stone monument on the site of the graves with the names and dates of death of all those interred.
"I was never comfortable with leaving those 39 people buried out there with just a number," Doyle said. "It was something that I would keep thinking about until I decided that the time was right to do something."
The names of the dead were easily determined through the hospital's records, which survive through the Pleasant View Nursing Home.
The monument was erected on the last weekend of June.
Doyle said 14 donors - a mixture of citizens and associations - worked to make the monument possible, and he thanked them for their help.
"We needed to give those people some kind of recognition," Doyle said.
The 39 dead were former patients of the Green County Mental Hospital, a mental facility that was replaced in 1969 by the Pleasant View Nursing Home. The deceased were buried north of the Pleasant View complex between 1934 and 1950.
Until this year, the graves were marked only by Roman numerals.
Green County Clerk Mike Doyle began raising $4,000 in October 2016 to erect a stone monument on the site of the graves with the names and dates of death of all those interred.
"I was never comfortable with leaving those 39 people buried out there with just a number," Doyle said. "It was something that I would keep thinking about until I decided that the time was right to do something."
The names of the dead were easily determined through the hospital's records, which survive through the Pleasant View Nursing Home.
The monument was erected on the last weekend of June.
Doyle said 14 donors - a mixture of citizens and associations - worked to make the monument possible, and he thanked them for their help.
"We needed to give those people some kind of recognition," Doyle said.