The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear

Elizabeth was audacious in asking McFarland to change how the “asylum” was run and his behavior. Despite her education and a previous stint in a state hospital, she was often uncharacteristically naive regarding her interactions with McFarland. McFarland was deeply insulted when she provided him with an inventory of his faults and presumed to tell him how to run his hospital, especially when she repeated the affront in front of the board of trustees. Truly believing in the word and dictates of her God, Elizabeth did not intend to present herself as an arbiter of or an authority on what God wanted from McFarland. Instead, she saw what she was doing as acting as the mouthpiece for God, hoping to save McFarland’s soul in the process. She was not insinuating that McFarland should have acted in the way she wanted him to act, but rather she recognized how far outside of biblical teaching McFarland’s actions had become the more she witnessed his personal conduct and his actions as superintendent. Perhaps because it did not appear in much of his writings, Moore does not address McFarland’s personal religious beliefs. Many medical and scientific community members in the mid-19th century were more concerned with the natural and biological elements than with religious doctrine in the way those interested in theology might have been. That she felt that it was her duty and her responsibility to compel McFarland to become more in line with what God wanted of him was a very common approach taken by people of the time who tried to intercede on others’ behalf. As religion was a more commonplace topic of discussion and factored more heavily in aspects of life, saving one’s soul wasn’t necessarily an out-of-bounds topic in social conversation. Thus, while advocating for others, Elizabeth also advocates for McFarland in that she tries to make him better so that he might not jeopardize his soul in his work as superintendent.

What was audacious about her conduct to McFarland was that she was a woman, considered to have a mental illness, presuming to lecture, challenge, and question him and his authority. When she begins challenging him, first in her threatening piece on Seventh Ward and then in her statement to the trustees while on Eighth Ward, McFarland undoubtedly thought to himself that this must have been the conduct that her husband had been speaking about which had led to her admission to Jacksonville in the first place. Many “asylum” superintendents viewed their institutions like a household, one in which the superintendent would provide comfort, guidance, authority, and security, acting as the replacement for all figures in the home. McFarland took this idea to the extreme in his administration of Jacksonville, and as it was his domain, he was, in a sense, afforded many of the protections, privileges, and privacies that Theophilus had enjoyed in treating Elizabeth the way he did at home. Just as Elizabeth had been punished for challenging the legitimacy and logic of Theophilus’s religious claims, so too was she punished for daring to tell McFarland how he should behave. For a woman to repeat or interpret the Bible’s teachings to men, regardless of how correct they might be on those statements and in those teachings, was unconscionable for many men. Like the household, the word of God was considered an arena that was only enforceable and interpretable by men and could be twisted and conveniently edited as it suited the men in power to do so. As often as he criticized Elizabeth for her shortcomings as a woman, McFarland never seemed to consider the dynamics of the Packard household concerning whether Theophilus measured up to the expectations of a Victorian man. Elizabeth, however, had absolutely considered it. Her direct confrontation during the board meeting when Elizabeth asked why McFarland had not evaluated her as a person and an equal to her husband was a continuation of her growing belief in equality and her later quest for equality under the law.

Although McFarland had been his greatest ally, even Theophilus went against McFarland when McFarland refused to campaign for maintaining Elizabeth in Jacksonville. Theophilus wanted to secure her incarceration because he could not manage her at home, but McFarland wanted to secure her release because she was too difficult to manage at Jacksonville. Even though so many people in Theophilus and Elizabeth’s social circles recognized that she did not have a mental illness, which later included new friends and allies that she made beyond the “asylum,” the loyalty that Theophilus had established early on when defaming his wife followed him throughout her time in Jacksonville, during her trial, and afterward. He felt no shame in enlisting all his coconspirators to write letters to keep Elizabeth locked away. In this instance, Elizabeth’s story provides a testament to the historical reality that in many cases, people were often kept in an “asylum” or some other kind of custodial care for the benefit of others, not for their well-being, and without regard for how or why others’ conveniences should matter more than another person’s right to autonomy. True to form, Theophilus’s continued efforts to keep his wife at Jacksonville reflect his tendency toward Hypocrisy, Vengeance, Vindictiveness and Abuse of Power Versus Duty, Moral Obligation, Righteousness, and Advocacy for Others.