28 November 1993 -- Death of John Doe Boyd

“John Doe No. 24” -- Mary Chapin Carpenter

Too often we move through life never taking notice of those unfortunates who daily cross our paths bearing sorrows and burdens we can only imagine. John Doe Boyd was such an unfortunate.

In October 1924, two police officers discovered a scantily-clad African-American teenager wandering the sidewalks of Jacksonville and rummaging through the garbage in its alleys. The tall young man, they quickly realized, was mute, deaf, and blind. The police department, unable to communicate with or even identify the lad, delivered him into the custody of state mental health professionals. Given a John Doe placeholder name, he would be committed to the Lincoln State School and Colony, a state institution in Jacksonville previously cursed with the deplorable name of The Illinois Institution for the Education of Feeble-Minded Children, He would spend the next 30 years of his life here before being cast adrift into the Illinois mental health system of institutions and nursing homes for the remainder. As his real identity would not be forthcoming, he would first be designated as John Doe No. 2, but his was quickly changed to John Doe No. 24, the title by which he would forever afterwards be remembered.

One of the Few Existing Photos of John Doe No.24

Fate was cruel to John Doe No. 24. He had lost all contact with the world in which his limited senses had allowed him some familiarity, and cast into the unknown. Conditions within mental institutions in that era were somewhat less than enlightened. Batteries of tests offered evidence of severe mental impediments. I would like to think these intellectual deficiencies lessened his susceptibility to loneliness and loss, but how could they? Besides, in the final years of his solitary existence, his caretakers argued those tests of four decades past had vastly understated John Doe No. 24’s intelligence.

It might be that I am too much projecting my own fears of alienation onto John Doe No. 24. Those mental health workers assigned to the mysterious patient reportedly found him apparently capable of enjoying his life. He was fond of dancing and favored wearing a beloved straw hat. John Doe No. 24 was never without his backpack in which he stashed a varied collection of keepsakes  -- namely rings, glasses, and silverware -- he had gathered over the years, perhaps indicating a desire for something familiar and permanent?

His true name and identity was never discovered, but clues to an intriguing if underivable past emerged over time. His expressive playfulness suggested familiarity with jazz dancing and, perhaps, circus parades leading some to suspect he had come to Jacksonville by way of New Orleans. He would sometimes scribble “Lewis,” a hint of an identify maybe, but one to which John Doe No. 24 could never be linked. His final six years were spent at the Smiley Living Center in Peoria, Illinois. On his very last Christmas, the staff gifted him a harmonica, a present from which he seemed to derive great joy.

In August of 1993, John Doe #24 underwent surgery for colon cancer. After his being returned to the Smiley Living Center, his health continued to decline necessitating a transfer to Peoria’s Sharon Oaks Nursing Home. It was there he suffered a fatal stroke on 28 November 1993. He was buried after a brief graveside service. Like his true name, his age at death remained unknown, but he was thought to be about 64. Not a single mourner in attendance left any parting words. In death as in life, he was alone.

Headstone of John Doe No. 24

At least his grave marker would later grant John Doe No 24 the veneer of something approaching a true name. In 1976, so as to qualify him for society security benefits, the state of Illinois legally changed his name to John Doe Boyd. This name would be the one engraved on his headstone. This headstone would be purchased and installed by singer-songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter,

Ms. Carpenter had read the New York Times’ obituary of John Doe No. 24 in a Washington, D.C. Starbucks. Struck by the story, she composed this haunting song, giving to John Doe No. 24 a past to replace that irretrievably lost.

“John Doe No. 24” -- Mary Chapin Carpenter

I was standing on this sidewalk

In 1945 in Jacksonville, Illinois

When asked what my name was there came no reply

They said I was a deaf and sightless, half-wit boy

But Lewis was my name though I could not say it

I was born and raised in New Orleans

My spirit was wild, so I let the river take it

On a barge and a prayer upstream

They searched for a mother and they searched for a father

And they searched till they searched no more

The doctors put to rest their scientific test

And they named me John Doe No. 24

And they all shook their heads in pity

For a world so silent and dark

Well, there's no doubt that life's a mystery

But so too is the human heart

And it was my heart's own perfume

When the crape jasmine bloomed on St. Charles Avenue

Though I couldn't hear the bells of the streetcars coming

By toeing the track I knew

And if I were an old man returning

With my satchel and pork-pie hat

I'd hit every jazz joint on Bourbon

And I'd hit every one on Basin after that

The years kept passing as they passed me around

From one state ward to another

Like I was an orphaned shoe from the lost and found

Always missing the other

They gave me a harp last Christmas

And all the nurses took a dance

Lately I've been growing listless

Been dreaming again of the past

I'm wandering down to the banks of the Great Big Muddy

Where the shotgun houses stand

I am seven years old and I feel my daddy

Reach out for my hand

While I drew breath no one missed me

So they won't on the day that I cease

Put a sprig of crape jasmine with me

To remind me of New Orleans

I was standing on this sidewalk

In 1945 in Jacksonville, Illinois