Josephine Buck (1875-1902) - Sent to the Asylum

Arizona Insane Asylum, Arizona Memory Project

Josephine Buck was born around 1875, probably in Neosho County, Kansas.  She was one of at least nine children of Asahel Buck and his wife Mary Ann Hutchings.  The Buck family had been in New York state since Colonial times.  Asahel himself was a lawyer, educated in Albany, New York.

By 1880, the Buck family was living in Sedan, Chautauqua, Kansas.

Christmas Eve, 1890, found them in Phoenix, where 15-year-old Josephine and her older sister Irene entertained friends with music and dancing at the Buck home on East Van Buren Street.

In 1892, Asahel Buck, now known as Andrew, was practicing law from his office in the Cotton Building.  Son William Hamilton Buck was a pressman for the Daily Herald newspaper, and daughter Irene Buck was a music teacher.  Daughter Evaluna was married to Charles M. Rupp, carpenter.

Josephine seems to have had a normal childhood.  She was a member of the IOOF’s Rebekah Lodge, and her family certainly enjoyed a certain social standing in the city.  However, it appears that around 1892, she began to manifest mental problems, possibly schizophrenia which tends to become apparent during a patient’s late adolescence.   Initially, she was cared for at home but, in April 1894, shortly after her sister Irene’s marriage to George Simms, Josephine became a patient at the insane asylum in Phoenix.

Released from the asylum in early August, 1897, Josephine was scheduled to be conveyed to a private sanitarium in California.  However, she got hold of a revolver and threatened to kill her mother with it.  When the sheriff arrived to remove her from the family residence, she became violent and had to be physically restrained.  She was recommitted to the asylum by order of a judge on August 31st.   She was still a patient in the Arizona Insane Asylum in 1900, where she probably contracted the tuberculosis that caused her demise.            

Josephine Buck succumbed on June 23, 1902, at her family’s home on 4th Street and Polk.   She was buried in the IOOF Cemetery, Block 21, Lot 2, northeast corner of the southwest quadrant.

-by Donna L. Carr