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whole household and tortured my roommate, Mrs. Ruth Caine, with my paranoid delusions. The dear soul tried to calm me as I paced back and forth.
    The next morning Mrs. Caine, who barely slept, told me one of the ladies had a nightmare of me rushing at her with a knife. And Mrs. Stanard left the house immediately upon rising to obtain policemen to have me removed.
    When she returned with the two large policemen, she asked them to take me “quietly” in order to keep from making a scandal before the neighbors. “If she doesn’t come along quietly,” responded an officer, “I’ll drag her through the streets.”
    After being processed at the station house, I appeared in court before Judge Duffy. I gave the pretense that I was Cuban. Having learned a good bit of Spanish in Mexico, I threw around enough “Sí, Señors” to sound convincing.
    Being told about my strange behavior and amnesia, Judge Duffy said, “Poor child, she is well dressed and a lady. Her English is perfect and I would stake everything on her being a good girl. I’m positive she is somebody’s darling.”
    Everyone laughed and I had to put a handkerchief over my face to choke my own laughter.
    “I’m sure she’s some woman’s darling,” hastily amended the judge. He suspected that I’d been drugged.
    Dear Mrs. Caine pleaded not to have me sent to “the Island” (exactly where I wanted to go) because I would be killed there. The judge decided to send me to Bellevue for the “drugs” to wear off.
    A crowd of curious onlookers gathered to see the “crazy girl” in the police ambulance. The doctor dropped the wagon’s curtains as a group of children, mudlarks, raced after us trying to get a look at me as they shouted all sorts of vulgar taunts.
    At Bellevue the order was given to take me to the insanity ward. A muscular man grabbed me so tight I lost my composure and shook him off with more strength than I realized I had. Seeing my distress, the ambulance doctor interceded and escorted me to the mad ward. Once there I was examined by another doctor who, after a short discourse with me, announced to the nurse, “She’s positively demented, a hopeless case.”

    BEFORE JUDGE DUFFY
    My “amnesia” case created something of a sensation at Bellevue and soon the worst possible thing occurred: newspaper reporters were permitted in to question me and my picture appeared in the papers!
    Desperate to get to Blackwell’s Island before the reporters saw through my act, I eagerly convinced two more doctors I was “hopeless.” They removed me from the ward and took me to a city wharf where about a dozen women waited to be put onto a boat.
    An attendant with rough manners and whiskey breath half-dragged us onto the boat. It seemed as if we were forever on this bumpy boat ride before we were taken ashore at a landing in New York’s East River.
    “What is this place?” I asked an attendant who had his fingers dug deep into the flesh of my arm.
    “Blackwell’s Island,” he grinned, “a place you’ll never get off.”

    THE INSANE ASYLUM

6
    Blackwell’s Island
    The name alone sounded depressing.
    The small island was grey and gloomy on the chilly day I set foot on it. About a mile and a half long and only an eighth of a mile wide, it sat like a stepping stone in the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Queens. Unless you were a competitive swimmer, it was too far to swim back to land.
    If I wasn’t already quite mad when I arrived, keeping my sanity in the face of conditions that have been frowned upon even at London’s notorious Bedlam quickly became a challenge.

    AN INSANITY EXPERT AT WORK
    The reception area was a long, narrow, austere room with bare concrete walls and barred windows. Nurses sat at a large table covered with a white bedspread in the center of the room. “Checking in” began immediately.
    “Come here,” a scowling, red-faced woman at the table snapped at me.
    I approached and was immediately assaulted with