The Abandoned Child Bride of FCI

Lancaster Eagle-Gazette 13 June 1927

There are so many sad stories that have emerged from the Fairfield County Infirmary. For years, this imposing building was a place where the unwanted were dumped. Anyone who was too ill, too poor, too mentally impeded to take care of themselves could find themselves trapped in this institution with no way out…other than death.

One of the more pitiful cases that is often talked about is that of a ‘child bride.’ Married at 15 years of age, this young woman soon found herself pregnant. What should have been a joyous occasion, turned tragic when the baby was either stillborn or passed shortly after birth. The exact timeline isn’t made clear, but the inconsolable young woman was abandoned by her husband and left to spend out the rest of her days at the Fairfield County Infirmary. 

This story was used as a tear-jerker/human interest piece in the December 23, 1927 edition of the Lancaster Eagle-Gazette, which annually ran a plea for the public to donate to the county infirmary and children’s home. What this particular article fails to include is that this couple was reunited…SIX MONTHS EARLIER. It wasn’t, however, a happy reunion.

Lancaster Eagle-Gazette 23 December, 1927

According to several articles printed in the Lancaster Eagle-Gazette in June of 1927, an elderly man named Charles Trotter showed up at the infirmary. Charles, now 76 years old, had spent his life traveling the world in search of his fortune. Never having found it, he wound up visiting the Lancaster area (where it all began) and was admitted, broke and broken, to the Fairfield County Infirmary. He was surprised to find there a patient named Bertha Trotter, now 73. Bertha was the wife he had abandoned 56 years ago. 

Charles claimed that he had been told she had died, and that was why he never came back for her. The matron of the infirmary, Mrs. Henry Hummel, asked Bertha if she was happy to see Charles after all these years. Her reply was perfect. Despite the fact that the chief complaint for her being left at the infirmary was that she could not longer ‘talk very plain,’ she plainly and boldly answered: “No; he left me when I needed him the most, he need not have returned.” 

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any additional information on the Trotter family. I assume that both lived out the rest of their lives, together but separate, in the old Fairfield County Infirmary, but I have yet to find any confirmation as to when either actually passed. I hope, however, that their shared time at the infirmary was one of vindication for Bertha.