Only a few years before the turn of the 20th century, the director of a psychiatric institution in Estonia noticed that certain patients diagnosed with mental illness exhibited common symptoms. He began to categorize these patients as suffering from “dementia praecox,” which meant “early onset dementia.”

During the early 20th century, some physicians began to use the term “schizophrenia,” which meant a “splitting of the mind,” in diagnosing people who displayed the common symptoms – auditory and visual hallucinations, amnesia, confusion, paranoia, memory lapses, incoherent speech, strange behavior, lack of concentration, abnormal thoughts and beliefs, and a basic disconnection from reality.

Then, as well as now, the cause of schizophrenia was not known. It may be genetic, caused by environmental factors, the chemistry within the brain becoming physically altered, or a combination of all three.

Because the illness was not easily understood, early treatments were often experimental. Brain surgery, electro-convulsive therapy and medications were tried, often with negative life-altering or life-ending consequences. The illness usually presented itself between the ages of 16 and 30. Often, there was no choice but to permanently place those afflicted within the care of a psychiatric hospital.

At 9:35 on the morning of June 8, 1936, Ruth Evelyn Jonah passed away from the effects of tuberculosis at the Rhode Island State Hospital for Mental Diseases. She was 31 years old and had been diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of 21.

The daughter of William Byard Jonah and Alice Louisa White, Ruth had been born in Cranston on July 25, 1904. She grew up on Elwin Street in Cranston with her older brother John and younger siblings, George and Helen.

William was a dealer of second-hand barrels and provided Ruth with the best education. She graduated in 1922 from Cranston High School, where she took part in glee club, English club and the girls athletic association. Described in her yearbook as being very quiet and studious, the quote beside her photograph reads, “A good mind possesses a kingdom.”

She then entered Brown University Women’s College. When she graduated in 1926, her yearbook stated that she was “one of the more industrious members of our class, taking courses in math and physics. There really must be something to this talk of heredity since a relative of Ruth’s is one of that awesome body known as the Math Department. We admire Ruth for her support of the class activities to which she always lends a willing hand.”

After college graduation, Ruth became a schoolteacher. By 1930, she was a patient at the Rhode Island State Hospital for Mental Diseases. It appears she went back and forth between the hospital and her family home on Elwin Street as records indicate she remained living at Elwin Street with her family and working as a teacher until 1936, when she returned to the hospital for the last time. Early that March, she developed tuberculosis and declined until her death three months later.