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Journalist Dave Bakke has written an important book about John Doe No. 24, a deaf mute African American man, whose real name remains unknown. Bakke first learned of John Doe No. 24 through a Mary Chapin Carpenter song. Carpenter, as she indicates in her brief forward to this book, became acquainted with John Doe's story through an obituary in The New York Times following his November 28, 1993 death. Both Carpenter and Bakke were struck by John Doe's ability to persevere with dignity and to wrest small pleasures and triumphs from a life riddled with multiple disabilities, physical and emotional pain, and anonymity. Without family, enduring friendships, or close community ties, John Doe led a life that caused many to respect and admire him.
John Doe No. 24 first came to public attention on the night of October 11, 1945 in Jacksonville, Illinois, where he was arrested, apparently for vagrancy. Because he was unable to communicate with the arresting officers or with anyone else who subsequently met him, and because no one was able to determine his real name and identity, the young man was called "John Doe" until his death nearly fifty years later. After his Jacksonville arrest, he was examined by two psychologists who testified in a court hearing that John Doe was "feeble-minded," and the judge consigned him to the care of the Illinois State Department of Mental Health. He spent the rest of his life under the guardianship of the state of Illinois, mainly in state-run institutions. Doe lived for thirty years in the Lincoln State School and Colony, an institution for the mentally challenged; five and one-half years in the Illinois State Hospital for the Insane in Jacksonville; over two years in the Helen Keller Center in Sands Point, New York; four years in group homes in Springfield; and, finally, four years in a nursing home in Peoria. Meanwhile, John Doe had become blind and diabetic.
Bakke meticulously reconstructed nearly fifty years of John Doe's life, from 1945-1993, using police reports, mental health records, oral interviews, newspapers, and other data. Bakke, like several other people before him, also attempted to find out more information about Doe prior to his arrest in Jacksonville, but this research added only a few days to what had previously been known of his life. Bakke does not indicate why he wrote the book, other than that he was riveted by Mary Chapin Carpenter's song and the young man whose life she illuminated in it. Bakke ventures that perhaps the "purpose of John's life [was] to illustrate for us again the stunning resiliency of the human spirit" (xx). Yet the significance of John Doe No. 24's life and Bakke's book go beyond Bakke's modest claim. As author Thomas Walz observes, this work is important because it "allows the reader to feel how institutional life was experienced by an individual who spent the better part of his life (from adolescence on) in the Illinois state institutional system. In many ways the book provides a balanced view of institutional caregivers; some are compassionate and others less so. The real indictment in the book is of the governmental system itself and the neglect of the thousands of institutionalized persons by the legislature and the public (back cover)." As readers follow John Doe through nearly fifty years of institutional care in Illinois mental health institutions, they likely will be struck by the callous and inhumane system that entrapped Doe and millions of others who were adjudged either mentally deficient or mentally ill. Mistreatment of patients, including both physical and mental cruelty; inadequate food, clothing, and shelter; non-existent or inadequate education; and the exploitation of their labor without compensation are only a few of the problems experienced by John Doe No. 24 and many other patients confined to mental health institutions in Illinois and elsewhere. At the Lincoln School, for example, other patients beat John Doe severely, and they stole his food and his meager personal possessions. Yet Doe developed a compassion for others and a willingness to help them. Thus, he spent long hours assisting the severely mentally disabled to go to the toilet, get dressed, eat, and to meet other basic needs. Various people helped John Doe to improve his life. Mary Ransdell, who taught at the Jacksonville Developmental Center - formerly the Illinois State Hospital - was determined to teach him to communicate using sign language. The staff at the Helen Keller Center assisted John Doe to develop these communication skills still further, to the point that he was able to live in a group home in Springfield, Illinois. Several people at his final residence in Peoria were concerned with the quality of John Doe's life, including the nurse who stood by his death bed, and quietly asserted, "God knows his name."