Born
October 28, 1868
England

Died
About 1927
Norristown, Pennsylvania

Parents
Adolph Manns
Elizabeth Scheling

Siblings
Elizabeth Manns
Josephine Manns
Catherine Manns
Adolph Manns Jr.
Amelia Manns
Rosa Mary Manns
One additional child, name unknown

Spouse
None

Children
None

Life Story

Bertha, the fifth of Adolph and Elizabeth's children, was born October 28, 1868 in England. When she was almost one, her family immigrated to Utica, New York. While living in Utica, Bertha became an older sister to Amelia and Rose.

Bertha apparently suffered from mental illness, and in June 1983 at the age of 24, she was committed to the State Hospital for the Mental Insane in Norristown, Pennsylvania She remained in the hospital for 34 years until her death at age 59. The death certificate indicated that the cause of death was "Exhaustion from Mental Disease," and the contributory cause was "Dementia Praecox."

Dementia Praecox was identified as a mental illness in the late 1800s, and it described individuals who showed signs of confusion, depression, headaches, delusions and auditory hallucinations, later developing into gaps in attention, incoherent speech and bizarre actions. It mostly afflicted young men, most of whom were between the ages of 16 and 22. Many people suffering from this disease also had a deadness of emotional experience or a flat affect. As asylums in the United States introduced dementia praecox as an identifiable mental illness, it became one of the most frequently diagnosed conditions with up to a half of all patients in institutions given this diagnosis. A wide variety of treatments, ranging from bromide, morphine and even extreme surgical measures were administered, but primarily patients were institutionalized and left to languish until they died. In 1893 the administration at Norristown Insane Asylum where Bertha resided, approved "oophorectomies," or the removal of ovaries, on fifty patients were selected as likely to benefit from the operation. After the fifth patient to be operated on died during surgery, the program was halted and deemed inhumane by many. However, the practice of sterilization and other surgeries on people deemed mentally ill continued at many institutions. By the early 1950s Dementia Praecox officially vanished as a term in psychiatry as the term schizophrenia became the preferred term to describe the illness.

It is not known whether Bertha's family visited her regularly or not. Her death certificate contained an incorrect age and did not include a date of birth, her parent's names or where she was born. She is buried in a family plot at Holy Cross Cemetery along with her mother and father, who predeceased her, and her sister Amelia, who died after her.

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Updated 9/20/14