Murphy Family Archive

Summary

Two-document primary-source admission record from the Montana State Hospital (Warm Springs) for **Patrick J. Murphy** (= person_patrick_murphy_my_ancestor, the user's paternal great- great-grandfather, "Pat the bartender" of CLAUDE.md). CORROBORATES the existing 1912-04-23 death certificate's "Patient committed 23 March 1908 → 4-year asylum tenure" framework. Adds substantial new biographical data not present in the death cert. ## Page I — STATISTICAL DATA form (typed/handwritten fields) - Name: **Murphy, P. J.** - Annotation: "**Old Patient**" (suggests this was a re-admission form filed during a routine staff-meeting review process) - Date of admission: **3-23-08** (23 March 1908) - Date of discharge or death: [BLANK at filing — he died 4 years later] - County: **Silver Bow** - Home address: **Butte** - **Age: 52** (= born ~1856, latest birth-year estimate for PJM) - Occupation: **Bartender** (corroborates the 4-record bartender chain) - Nativity: **Ireland** (corroborates) - Years in United States: [unclear / not filled] - Civil condition: **Married** (corroborates) - **Etiological factors: Apoplexy** (a 1908 medical-term cover- word for cerebrovascular event or stroke-related cognitive decline — likely the precipitating committment trigger) - Classification, Provisional: **Melancholia** (the 1908 psychiatric category for what we'd today call major depression, often the first-cut provisional diagnosis for any patient presenting with cognitive/affective deterioration) - Classification, Revised: [blank — but the later 1912 death cert gives the final diagnosis as "Exhaustion of Secondary Dementia" with "Secondary Dementia" duration 4 years, so the revised classification at the 4-year endpoint was the dementia diagnosis] - Date of presentation at Staff meeting: **Nov. 11, 1908** (i.e., the formal staff case-review was held ~7 months after admission) ## Page II — CLINICAL NOTES (handwritten manuscript) **Family History**: "Remembers little of family, says he left them in Ireland. They [parents] were not related and were about same age. No T.B. or other family diseases known. Father & mother both dead, but does not know cause of death — both were old. & father drank a good deal. Says there are no convulsions or fits as he knows [of]." **Personal History**: "Says he does not remember of having diseases of childhood, no convulsions. Went to school a year or two & learned to read & write a little. — No late diseases or injuries. **Has had eight children — only three are living. Some were still born & some died in infancy.** Patient has drank a great deal of whiskey & beer and has been drunk on many occasions. Denies all venereal diseases, but later states that he had a small sore on privates about 1[0?] years ago but it healed up of its own accord and can get no history of secondary lesion." ## CRITICAL FAMILY FINDINGS 1. **EIGHT CHILDREN, ONLY THREE LIVING in March 1908**. This is a major fill on the family composition of Patrick Murphy + Ellen Lyne. The three known surviving 1908 children: - **James J. Murphy** = the 1938-LA-d. JJM (b. 1883 Ardgroom) - **Daniel L. Murphy** (employed at Boucher's clothing store Butte 1938 per JJM 1938 obit) - **Theresa Murphy** (Seattle 1938 per JJM 1938 obit) The FIVE who pre-deceased 1908 were stillborn or died in infancy. This explains why the existing archive's Pat-Ellen- children record is short — five children never made it past infancy and would have left only baptismal-register traces (if any). 2. **Father (PJM's father) drank a good deal** — a generational genetic alcoholism marker referenced in PJM's clinical interview. PJM himself "drank a great deal of whiskey & beer and has been drunk on many occasions." Bartender + heavy drinker over decades is consistent with the asylum presentation. 3. **PJM's parents both dead** by March 1908, both "old" at death. PJM said he "remembers little of family, left them in Ireland" — suggests emigration as a young adult and no significant return contact. Parents born early 19th century, died Ireland, exact dates unknown to PJM. 4. **PJM's literacy was minimal**: schooling "a year or two," "learned to read & write a little." Fits the pattern of an unschooled emigrant who became a bartender in Butte — a wage-labor / service-economy emigrant of the post-Famine wave. 5. **Self-reported syphilis hint**: "a small sore on privates about 1[0?] years ago but it healed up of its own accord and can get no history of secondary lesion." The 1908 staff likely suspected **tertiary neurosyphilis (general paresis of the insane)** as the underlying etiology — a major cause of asylum admissions in this era that often presented as gradual cognitive decline with melancholic features and "apoplexy"- like symptoms. The 1912 death cert's final diagnosis "Exhaustion of Secondary Dementia" is consistent with tertiary syphilis. (Whether PJM actually had it cannot now be confirmed.) 6. **Apoplexy + later dementia = paretic / vascular dementia.** The 1908 "apoplexy" + 1912 "exhaustion of secondary dementia" reads as a 4-year progressive neurodegenerative decline culminating in death. ## TWO-DOCUMENT INTEGRATION Statistical Data + Clinical Notes are two pages of the same intake-and-staff-review case file. The Statistical Data form was filed at intake (3-23-08); the Clinical Notes are the formal staff-meeting case review presented Nov 11, 1908 (per the Statistical Data's "Date of presentation at Staff meeting" field). Together they give the fullest medical-administrative portrait we have of PJM in the asylum.

Parties named in the record

patient subject
Murphy, P. J. / P. J. Murphy(= Patrick Murphy (my ancestor))100
age: 52 · status: Married · occupation: Bartender

People — link detail

Patrick Murphy (my ancestor)(as printed: Murphy, P. J. / P. J. Murphy)
role: patient subject · family confidence: 100 certain
age: 52 · born: ~1856 (= 1908 minus 52) · birthplace: Ireland · status: Married · occupation: Bartender
OFFICIAL Montana State Hospital admission record of the user's paternal great-great-grandfather Patrick Murphy. Anchors his asylum-commitment date (23 March 1908) and adds primary-source biographical data on family composition (8 children, 3 living), literacy (year or two school), and substance use history.

Also mentioned

PJM's father (unnamed) · subject_father_per_clinical_interview
PJM reports father 'drank a good deal,' both parents dead in Ireland, both 'old' at death, parents not related (no consanguinity), cause of death unknown to PJM.
PJM's mother (unnamed) · subject_mother_per_clinical_interview
PJM reports mother dead in Ireland, 'old' at death.

Places

Themes

irish_american_community

Story threads

The Pat-and-Ellen Murphy household — Butte 1887 to LA 1980

Related sources

Open questions

The five Murphy children who died before 1908 (stillborn or in infancy) — any baptismal-register or civil birth-cert traces survive? If any were baptized at Kilcatherine / Eyeries / Ardgroom before the family emigrated, IGRSA or Civil Registry searches might surface birth/death certificates for them. Pending Irish-records follow-up.
"About 1[?] years ago" — could be 10, 11, 12, 18 years. Handwriting ambiguous. Either way, places PJM's self-reported syphilis exposure around the mid-1890s in Butte.
PJM's age 52 in 1908 → b. ~1856. The existing archive's 1881 marriage record (PJM + Ellen Lyne 13 Feb 1881 Kilcatherine) had PJM as "Patrick Murphy SHOEMAKER" — at age 25 in 1881, the shoemaker occupation predates his bartender career by ~15 years. He must have emigrated and switched careers in Butte. Birth year ~1856 puts him as a 25-year-old 1881 newlywed and a ~25-year-old who emigrated some time between 1881-1885.
"Date of presentation at Staff meeting: Nov 11, 1908" — implies a routine 7-month-post-admission staff case-review process. Additional staff-meeting clinical notes may exist in MSH records spanning Nov 1908 → April 1912 (annual review cycle would mean ~4 more case-review entries).

Patrick J. Murphy asylum admission record — Warm Springs MT, 23 March 1908, age 52, bartender, 8 children only 3 living