Sarah Bain entered Ah-Gwah-Ching State Sanitarium the first week of Jan. 1957 and was released August 1, 1958. In Aug. 1957 her husband (William Bain) had a paralytic stroke and was in a coma until Nov. 12. She was unable to attend the funeral. The poetry from this page on was written after that time of entry into the Sanitarium.
Ah-Gwah Ching—Fair Ah-Gwah Ching—
On Leech Lake’s lovely brow,
Builded by our own great State
And she’ll protect us now.
By masked doctors and masked nurses
We are given best of care,
Altho’ at first ’tis hard to know
Who’s who, or when, or where.
But when a day begins to wane
Our masked and white-gowned nurses
Tuck us tenderly away;
Then we think of home and loved ones
See our little ones at play,
And our prayers second to heaven
At the waning of a day.
Reprinted from the March issue of “The Moccasin”, published by the patients at the State Sanitarium. This was just south of Walker, Minn.