NameDorothy (Dora) Schuster
Birth1890, Buffalo, New York
DeathChicago, Illinois
MiscellanyCalled Dorothy; died in Dunning mental hospital
Flags#Greiners, Linked, Thumbnail, [FamLabel], [Gen10], [GenYes]
FatherKarl Charles Schuster (1873-1940)
MotherChristiane Louise Geiger (1866-1918)
Spouses
Miscellany"A louse; beat Dorothy"--Ethel
Notes for Dorothy (Dora) Schuster
Aunt Dorothy (very sweet person and played piano beautifully) married to a louse of a husband, named Pete [who] would beat her and chased with other women. Dora would get fainting spells due to the beatings. [She] had three boy babies, but all died in infancy. He [Pete] put her in Dunning (then a mental institution) on West Irving park, where she died (it was said they put a pillow over her head).

Only he could sign the papers for her release. She was just as normal and they’d give her all the dirty work to do. Mother and Aunt Cal took me twice to visit her. They would bring her ice cream. She loved it and wanted me to visit (I was only 9 years then) as she loved me a lot. I still have my impressions of those days—of walking outside the building and seeing like animal cages where men and women in ragged clothes, some almost naked, hair like wild men and women, hanging on the bars—that was Dunning. A fire broke out a few years later—many died—investigations changed a lot of that since. But poor Aunt Dora, we could never get her out and she died there. So that was her life.

-- Ethel Mayer Vogt, May 1979 letter to her daughter Marcia
Last Modified 1 May 2012Created 6 Sep 2014 using Reunion for Macintosh