Our meetings with the Lost Alaskans group in Anchorage were fantastic.  The group is highly energetic and committed to knowing what happened to all of the Alaskans who were sent to Morningside Hospital and never returned home.  Our work in Portland is helping to answer those questions.
One of the things we learned was that some of the people who were being tried for being insane were able to use the judicial process to help fight those charges and at times got the sentence delayed, or even successfully fought those charges.
Of course there were people sent to Morningside who now would not be institutionalized and for whom medication now are used, but there were definitely those who could only be helped by being institutionalized/hospitalized.
Eric and David both benefitted by attending the meetings, and are extremely honored at being invited north.  The Lost Alaskans group is an awesome group of people who were very touched when they were shown photos of the markers of Alaskans in Portland area cemeteries.  We are now currently busy helping the project by helping with data extraction from the Death Certificates obtained at the Oregon State Archives in Salem, and from various quarterly reports issued by the Hospital.  The stories being gathered are poignant and ones that shouldn't be forgotten.