Is She There Or Is She Here

Is She There, OR is She Here?

My 3rd great grandmother, Margaret Arion-Rainey Phelps spent the last 6 months of her life in the Athens State Hospital in Athens, Athens Co., Ohio.

Margaret's life as a child was a bit of a tragedy in itself. According family oral history her parents were French Huguenots and were killed or separated from her when she was very young; thus the name Arion, and raised by a Rainey family from Meigs, OH or a nearby county in WV. The story goes the Indians took the Arion family canoes or boats down the Ohio River.

I found a John Reny listed living in Salisbury Twp., Meigs Co., Ohio on the 1840 census but no further information has been located on him. I was never successful in locating the name Arion or a variant spelling in either Ohio or West Virginia

That's all I know about Margaret before her marriage on May 15, 1834, in Meigs Co., Ohio to Conrad Phelps. She would have been about age 17 or 18 years old; probably 18 since no one had to sign for the marriage.

With Ohio and West Virginia being a wilderness in the early 1800s it is unlikely she had any form of formal education. The 1880 census however shows she could read but could not write.

She says she was born in various locations, 1850 VA, 1870 OH, 1880 in West Virginia and her parents were born in France. When I found her on the 1900 census I learned she was in Athens State Hospital listed as an inmate. This census was taken only days before her death.

I first tried to contact the hospital but they never answered my letters. So I turned to probate court records at the Meigs Co. Courthouse.

From the probate records I learned the reason for her being committed:
"Manders[sic], and is never satisfied. Her mind is unsettled." Plus she had been committed previously off and on over the last three years before her last stay. When she died no one claimed her body. I thought that so very sad as she still had children living in the area.

A few years later I learned one of my uncles worked at the Athens State Hospital in the 1960's and thru him and his contacts he was able to obtain what records were still available. The only information was the number on her grave marker, date committed, date she died -- all other records had been destroyed.

She was 76 years of age when she was committed to the hospital by court order and died almost to the day within 6 months.

To this day I am not sure exactly where she is buried. According to the file my uncle got from the hospital she is buried in grave #181 on the grounds of the State Hospital in Athens. However, according to two other accounts I found, an obituary and info from a distant relation's diary, she is not buried there.

Her obituary states she was brought back to the town & county she had previously lived and was buried -- no location given. There are several possibilities as to which cemetery. The diary states she was buried in a specific cemetery, which is possible as there are many unmarked graves in the Robison Cemetery. Now to add to this confusion one of the papers in her probate court record says her body was not claimed by any family members and signed by a judge plus the fact the hospital says she was buried in grave #181.

I don't know what to believe. Should I go with the probate court records and the paper signed by the judge? Or the obituary and diary?

Could the obituary and diary information all just be a smoke screen to save face with the community and family?