People could be institutionalized for almost any reason. Some struggled with mental illness, or a physical disability or substance abuse. Some had epilepsy, or were children with Down syndrome, or women suffering from postpartum depression. Orphaned children or pregnant mothers could be dropped off and remain there for the rest of their lives.
Today Lubbers works with the nonprofit group Remembering With Dignity, which is halfway through the long process of replacing all those numbered graves with proper headstones.
To date, Remembering With Dignity has placed 7,139 new headstones and is in the process of installing 750 more at old institutional cemeteries in Rochester, Faribault and Fergus Falls. Another 5,111 graves have yet to be restored.
Finding a name for those graves, and learning the stories behind those names, is Halle O’Falvey, who runs the Remembering with Dignity program.