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| Many graves go unmarked and forgotten. |
For almost 80 years, no one is thought to have visited Peter Gauslin's grave.
Relatives
didn't know where he was buried or how he died until his great-grandson
Andrew Daft began researching family history in 2012 and learned his
death occurred at a mental institution. He also discovered that Gauslin,
his grandmother's father, is buried in an unmarked grave in Appleton,
about 100 miles north of Milwaukee.
Gauslin
is among tens of thousands who were buried in unmarked graves around
the nation during the 20th century after dying at state- or county-run
psychiatric hospitals, then called insane asylums or sanitariums.
Families were either too poor for a headstone, couldn't be reached or
had forgotten about their relatives.
