Anxiously counting the days until I go to Bellingham, Washington for the Chanticleer International Book Awards conference. Both Guarded Hearts and Outlaw's Redemption made the Finals! Super excited about it. I love the Chanticleer conference and since I haven't been able to go for the past three years, I'm ready to see everyone again.
Since I'll be driving from Wyoming to Washington, I was looking at different things to stop and see. I'm going to get in a lot of book research along the way. In Washington I found a few ghost towns and old Cemetaries to visit. So many neat things in Washington. In my looking, I came across the story of the Williamson Sisters and Dr. Linda Hazzard. I dug a little deeper into the story and found it very interesting. I watched Ask a Mortician on YouTube about the sisters. There is also a book about it by Gregg Olson called Starvation Heights.
Dr. Linda Hazzard was a fasting specialist. She published her book Fasting for the Cure of Disease in 1908. Wealthy British sisters Claire and Dora Williamson were visiting Vancouver when they learned of Hazzard and her Institute of Natural Therapeutics in Olalla, Washington. Hazzard sent them her book and the sisters decided to go the Institute, though neither were seriously ill. Dora complained of swollen glands and rheumatic pains.
In 1911 the sisters arrived in Seattle and Hazzard set them up in the Capitol Hotel until her sanitarium in Olalla was ready. They were only allowed to eat a cup of broth made from tomatoes twice a day. They endured hours-long enemas in a bathtub. Hours-long! Then the tub was covered with canvas supports when the sisters started fainting from the pain.
In two months the sisters were moved to the sanitarium in Olalla, weighing only 70 pounds. Things only got worse at the sanitarium. Tomato broth, enemas, scalding baths, and massages (physical pummeling) were a daily occurrence. Hazzard manipulated the sisters into signing over their wealth and jewelry to her. Something she did with many of her patience. One of the sisters snuck a cablegram to their childhood nurse, Margaret Conway, and she came to the sanitarium. When Margaret arrived, Claire was already dead.
By now, Dora weighted only 50 pounds. Hazzard basically held her for ransom until Dora's uncle from Portland paid nearly a thousand dollars to get her out. Hazzard was charged with the murder or Claire (though she had starved many patience to death) and was found guilty. She was sentenced to hard labor in Walla Walla and her medical license revoked. The was later pardoned by the governor after two years. In 1920 she returned to Olalla and built her dream sanitarium. She actually had customers. I can't imagine willingly going to a doctor that was known for starving her patients to death. Her sanitarium later burned down in 1935.
Though there is nothing left but a 7-foot-tall concrete tower and the ruins of the buildings foundation in Olalla, if I have time I'd like to go see where it was. When I'm at the Pikes Market Place I can see the Northern Bank and Trust building, where Hazzard's office was back in 1911.
Claire Williamson is buried in the Tacoma Cemetary. Hopefully I will get the chance to stop and see her grave.
The Doctor Who Starved Her Patience to Death by Bess Lovejoy
The Doctor, the Mortician, and the Murder on Ask A Mortician
I just cannot imagine, or want to imagine, what those sisters and other patients went through. They never should've let that women open another sanitorium, but back then, things were a lot different than they are today. Thanks for sharing, T.K.! best of luck with your books and safe travels.
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