HASTINGS, Neb. — The Adams County Historical Society has posted on its website the names of 957 people buried in a former psychiatric hospital cemetery in Hastings. The society obtained the list of names through a court battle with the state.
The society's executive director, Catherine Renschler, said she's gotten a number of calls from people asking whether their relatives are buried in unmarked graves at the Hastings Regional Center. Bodies were buried there between 1889 and 1957.
"Sometimes people are just hunting for people who disappeared from their family," Renschler said. "They don't know what became of them, so they maybe don't even know about the regional center."
The list of names can be found at http://bit.ly/ouyzcz.
The list includes names and dates of death but no other identifying information about the person, she explained. So a family searching for a relative will likely have to do more research to confirm a person on the list is a relative. She suggested census records or the last-known county of residence could be resources for confirmation.
The historical society fought for almost two years to make the names available to the public. It sued the State Department of Health and Human Services, which had argued that federal medical privacy law prohibited the release of the names. The Nebraska Supreme Court disagreed and, in 2009, ordered the names released.
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