‘Where’s Molly?’ One family’s experience with institutionalization
August 2nd, 2007
Molly and Jeff Daly. Photo from the Salem, Ore. Statesman Journal.
From a new documentary featured on CNN:
In 1957, when Jeff Daly was 6 years old, his 2-year-old sister suddenly disappeared from his family.
For nearly 50 years, Jeff and his family lived their lives as if his sister had never existed.
One day, after both his parents had died, Jeff found the answer to the question he wasn’t supposed to ask
Following records his father had kept, Jeff Daly learned that his parents had sent Molly to a state institution for the “feeble-minded” in Oregon shortly before her third birthday. He searched for her, built a new life that includes her, and then lobbied for a change in Oregon law that makes it easier for families to locate people who had been institutionalized.
Now Daly has made a documentary film that explores his family’s journey. “Where’s Molly?” opens a window on the practice that led to the institutionalization of an estimated half a million children with disabilities in the ’50s alone. More on the film can be found here and here. An online chat with Daly is here.
CNN explores the history and significance of institutionalization in the 1950s and 60s, and traces the legacy of stigma and shame that is still felt today.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, August 2nd, 2007 at 4:23 am and is filed under disabilities, documentary, families, first-person, institutionalization, movies, personal stories, stigma.
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