And you thought I was insane...

Today was a rough day.  Almost half my pulls were denied because the archivist couldn't find them (how they lost Sophronia Bucklin's pension file I'll never know), and I managed to leave my camera charger at the Archives.  Hopefully they won't throw it out.
On the other hand, I spoke to one of the researchers about finding papers relating to my Special Acts--the legislation rather than the pensions themselves.  Apparently the time between 1866 and 1892, the period I'm interested in, isn't very well documented, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  Hopefully I'll know more by tomorrow.


Marie J. Blaisdell
(National Archives)

The Unfortunate Mr. Blaisdell
(National Archives)

I also had a rather large surprise to deal with.  Yesterday I put in a request for the pension of Marie J. Blaisdell.  There was nothing remarkable about the pension.  All I knew was that she'd filed her claim in 1892.  So, when they told me her pension file was seven folders...let me put it to you this way.  A typical pension file is one folder, and a skinny one at that.  Ten, twenty papers is typical, more if someone put in a claim for reimbursement after the death of the pensioner, or if the claim is contested and the would-be pensioner sends in affadavits.  But still, it only amounts to one folder.  Blaisdell's file is 45 pounds of paper crammed into 7 folders.  The staff has never seen anything like it.  So you bet I was hoping for something good.  And I got it. Both Marie and her husband served in the war: she as a nurse for nine months, he as a Brevet Lieutenant in the 5th Minnesota.  Marie came out just fine.  Her husband did not.  Shortly after the war ended he began to show signs of what they called "cerebral softening"--in other words, he'd gone insane.  If you listen to Blaisdell's accounts, he was a real basket case: he had frequent mood-swings, sometimes becoming violent and threatening her.  He'd babble inanely, or lose control of his bowels.  Sometimes he'd run off into the woods and she and the neighbors would have to go and pull him out.  At one point I believe a doctor said he claimed to see balls of fire floating in front of his face, and refused to be left alone.  Frankly, it reads like a bad Victorian novel (think Bertha in Jane Eyre's attic).  Mrs. Blaisdell finally had her husband committed in the 80s.

The result was that her husband's pension now shot up to $75 a month--a typical pension was $8 or $12.  And then, a new administration came in, and its new policies cut Blaisdell's $75 a month to $10 on the grounds that he was not actually insane, or, alternately, that his insanity was not a direct result of his service (they liked to contradict themselves).  After that, well, Mrs. Blaisdell wasn't exactly easy to live with to begin with.  Now, she began a twenty year campaign to have her husband's pension restored to $75 a month and to collect what eventually amounted to $20000 in arrears.  It was a circus.  The papers took to calling her the 'Minnesota Blizzard,' or the 'Queen of the Northwest.'  Someone tried to have her committed.  Everyone at the Pension Bureau avoided her.  Mrs. Blaisdell wrote very bad poetry, tragic tales of her woe and suffering for the papers to lap up, and dozens and dozens of letters to presidents and Congressmen.  She's a stubborn, money-grubbing, self-centered, outrageous woman.  And I can't even tell if she won the case or not!