Capstone research at UT is uncovering history to change a long-misunderstood Appalachian identity.

Olivia Roberts is a senior in the College Scholars Program, majoring in her individual niche, Interdisciplinary Appalachian Studies, with a focus on regional history. For her senior capstone, Roberts has been researching the East Tennessee State Asylum. It’s a memorialization project for the patients buried at the asylum, which is now known as Lakeshore Mental Health Institute or Lakeshore Park.

Established in 1883, four miles from Knoxville, the East Tennessee State Asylum consisted of nine various buildings, with the main building capable of housing 250-300 patients. The land the asylum was built on originally belonged to the Cherokee Tribe before changing hands as part of the Treaty of the Holston in 1791 and then later in the 1863 Treaty of Philadelphia. The asylum has undergone multiple name changes, including Lyons View Asylum, Lakeshore Mental Health Hospital and East Tennessee Psychiatric Hospital.

Originally from Knoxville, Roberts’ many regional connections and an upbringing hearing beautiful family stories about Appalachia drove her to this niche interest.

“UT does not have an Appalachian studies department or program or major, and I knew that that’s something that I really, really wanted to focus on,” Roberts said. “So College Scholars (was) able to allow me to explore that further.”

Roberts recalls the mental health hospital being torn down to make Lakeshore Park. Sitting in her room one day, she thought about the asylum and the fact that many people have had to pass away there. She’d never seen the cemetery before and realized they had to be buried somewhere. Her interest sparked, Roberts resolved to turn the subject into her capstone research.

Roberts visited the asylum cemetery, tucked away behind the veteran cemetery. When she saw the contrast between the lovely plot the veterans had compared to the asylum cemetery, it overwhelmed her. She said the veterans absolutely deserve the land and their clean, white graves with wreaths they receive every year for Christmas, but the asylum cemetery barely had any headstones left and is immensely overgrown.

Her visit motivated her to highlight this contrast and serve as a source for the community in her research.

Roberts’ research focuses on the asylum itself, its history and the history of its cemetery. However, the largest part of her research has been going through all of the asylum’s death records, discovering who has been buried there and tying names to the place. Roberts has found around 700 names of patients and has individually researched every one of their lives and stories.

“The cemetery is across the street tucked away behind the veteran cemetery, and I felt like it was important to kind of start talking about that, because I feel like a lot of Knox civilians, and especially with a lot of people moving in now, don’t know the story of the asylum and all the things that went on there,” Roberts explained. “And that, in and of itself, is another important facet to study of the Appalachian identity because we so often ignore things like mental health, especially in this region. So I just wanted to highlight that and focus on it, but more than anything, tell the stories of the patients.”

There are many common stories and various overlaps between patients’ lives, though Roberts believes each is interesting and different. She finds that they give a unique perspective on how Appalachian identity can be changed by institutionalization. However, she also understands that we will never truly know how many people are buried at the asylum cemetery and that many patients’ stories will never be told.

“Unfortunately, records were not kept very well, and you can see the discrepancies in between who they felt like kind of deserved more record keeping and who kind of had less,” Roberts said.

Due to racial and gender inequalities seen in some of the patient records, Roberts has found varying amounts of information. When the asylum still functioned, Black patients were separated into different buildings and sections of the cemetery. Roberts encountered similar challenges in record-keeping, bringing to light further insight into how Appalachian identity affected patient care.

“I think in the world of Appalachian studies, we focus a lot on the idea of the Appalachian people. But it’s really important for me to kind of show that that’s not a singular identity at all. That in this huge region, not a small region, everybody has a different background and a different story, and I think it’s really important that we highlight those,” Roberts said. “But I specifically have always been really interested in the mind of untold stories or the forgotten stories.”

Another focus of Roberts’s research is the fact that you can be Appalachian even if you come from an urban city, like her. Though Roberts grew up in Knoxville, she spent a lot of her childhood with her grandparents in Jefferson County on their small farm. They often told her stories about Appalachia, spending quality time in the fields and shucking corn together. But it was Roberts’ grandmother, Bobby or “Nanny,” who had a more traditional Appalachian race story.

Bobby grew up in a tiny shack in western North Carolina with 12 other siblings. She captivated Roberts with her detailed, emotional stories. Roberts swears she had a photographic memory.

“I wanted to be able to find a way to highlight those stories that people don’t really talk about,” Roberts said. “Whether it’s your own personal one or something that’s not really known about.”

Roberts created the Eastern Tennessee State Asylum Cemetery Database for her capstone project. Working as a patient memorial, it’s accessible to the public and is a place for all of the patient’s records that she has uncovered and organized.

“I really wanted to create kind of a focal point to go to and, like, a database. So that’s what I did,” Roberts said.

The website goes through the history of the asylum and the cemetery. It contains each of the patient’s names, and if you click on their name, it will take you to the patient’s own page. The page has a research biography of their lives, as well as their death certificates. Sometimes other items are included, like photos of newspaper articles that Roberts found them in.

Roberts’ goal is to have a physical plaque memorial at the asylum where visitors can be directed to her website and research.

“So hopefully we can keep the knowledge alive of who is there, and it can be spread in a more accessible way. Because, I mean, it’s hard for a lot of people to be able to go to archives, and go to libraries, and sit down and spend hours researching like I have,” Roberts said.

After graduation, Roberts plans to stay in Knoxville and continue conducting her research on Appalachian history and identity. It is important to her to spread awareness about the negative effects of Appalachian stereotypes and knowledge about Appalachia’s history and culture. She feels that many people in the United States still hold a specific idea about Appalachian people that is not the only story they have to tell, but the one that has stuck.

“There’s just so much to learn from everybody else and how they live, and I’m just not OK with us being categorized that way,” Roberts said.

Though UT does not currently have an Appalachian studies program, there are many resources on campus for those who are interested in Appalachia and related studies. Courses include Music of Appalachia, Religions of Appalachia, History of Appalachia and Appalachian Literature. There is an Appalachian Heritage Club on campus, as well as the Appalachian Justice Research Center, which is a part of the Haslam College of Business.

Associate professors William “Bill” Hardwig in UT’s English department, Joseph Witt in the religion department, and Jessie Wilkerson in the history department, as well as assistant geography professor Gabe Schwartzmann are additional resources on Appalachian studies, according to Roberts.