Every time I visit any cemetery I begin to immediately wonder about the people buried in it. What are their stories? Finding headstones that include a photographs is always extra special because now I know what they looked like even if I don't know anything else about them. I was attracted to this particular grave by the beautiful smile on this young woman's face. I was also all too aware that she had died at the age of 25. Her life had barely begun. But as so often happens after visiting a cemetery, my life becomes busy and I have to set aside time later to do the research. As I was going back through my pictures in order to create a social media post for some Monday inspiration, I came across this photo and decided that Doris's smile was the perfect inspiration for a Monday morning. Of course, after I made the post, many people asked how she died so young and I decided I wanted to be able to give them an answer. And so, I started to dig to learn her story. It's ironic that the portrait we see of her looks so carefree and happy, when the end of her life was most likely very tragic.
Disclaimer: there are a lot of pieces to this story still missing. Please do not make any harsh judgments about the family of this young woman as you read her story because we don't know the full picture. The records may yet exist, but are not available digitally, or perhaps they were long destroyed by the family since mental health conditions were considered extremely shameful. Revealing that you had a loved one being treated in an institution for the mentally ill could ostracize you from society even in the 1940s. And while we have come a long way in modern society, there is still a lot of stigma around mental health conditions and how individuals and families choose to treat them.
This is the story of Doris Hemminger Dalio, a young woman with a beautiful smile forever frozen in time on her gravestone.
Doris Hemminger was born in 1916 to Bert and Lillie Hemminger in Pueblo, Colorado. It appears she was their only child. Bert, as so many other men in Pueblo at the time, worked for the railroad and Lillie was a homemaker. In 1929, at the age of 54, Bert passed away from issues caused by "kidney trouble" leaving Lillie and Doris on their own. Doris would have been 10 or 11 years when she lost her father. The 1930 census shows that Lillie and Doris had given living space to Bert's brother William. He may have been contributing financially to the household, although the census does list Lillie as the head of the house and that she is still a homemaker. On May 14, 1934, Lillie took a second chance on love and married Willam O. Bond, who like her first husband worked for the railroad.
Doris by this time, was a teenager with an active social life as evidenced in some newspaper clippings from the time like this one printed in 'The Walsenburg World', August 12, 1930 - "A wiener roast was held at Ideal Sunday. Those who attended were - Mr. and Mrs. C. V. Ridge and family, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Stephenson and family, Mrs. L. M. Keegan, Mr. and Mrs. James Hall and family, Mr. and Mrs. O. G. Hall, Miss Doris Hemminger of Pueblo and Paul Rakestraw of Iowa." On July 10, 1936, at the age of 20, Doris Hemminger became Mrs. Doris Dalio when she married the very handsome, musically talented Louis G. Dalio. And this is where I find no more details about Doris until the 1940 census which lists Doris as an inmate of the Colorado State Hospital for the Insane.
Why or when she came to be there is a mystery, this is where the digital records leave off. I did come across the Biannual State Hospital Report for the years 1939-1941 which states that total admissions for that time were 1,806 individuals -- 1,056 males, 750 females. Diagnosis for those committed included not only psychiatric disorders, but also diabetes, tuberculosis, and venereal diseases. Interestingly enough, one of the first paragraphs in the report states, "The total number of admissions for the last fiscal year was the greatest for any twelve-month period in the history of the hospital (1879 is when it opened). This was accounted for, however, by the increase in patients who entered voluntarily. Each year more people are admitted in this manner and if the statute governing this procedure were modified, a still greater number could enter without going through the rather distasteful and ofttimes harmful experience of court commitment." The report also mentions that of the 1,806 individuals committed during that time, 746 died while hospitalized.
Perhaps Doris had a mental health emergency or perhaps she had contracted tuberculosis and needed treatment for that. Whatever the cause, I am sure her death left her husband and her mother heartbroken. That she was buried and given a beautiful headstone with a porcelain photograph of her glowing smile, is proof that she was loved. She was laid to rest in Mountain View Cemetery in Pueblo, Colorado, the same cemetery where her father was buried 14 years earlier. Louis would go on to serve as a Staff Sergeant in the Army in WWll. He did eventually remarry and by all accounts lived a contented life and was missed by many when he passed away in 2002. Lillie and William were married for 32 years, until Lillie's death in 1966. Willam passed away in 1971 and the two are buried together in Mountain View like Doris and Bert.
