Alfa Mathilde Haugen
The modest grave tablet of Alfa Mathilde Haugen is an exception. In the past, children with intellectual disabilities were rarely given a gravestone.
ALFA MATHILDE HAUGEN: 1898–1920
The modest grave tablet of Alfa Mathilde Haugen is an exception. In the past, children with intellectual disabilities were rarely given a gravestone.
In Klæbu Cemetery stands a simple memorial whose inscription has been worn away by time. It marks the grave of Alfa Mathilde Haugen, who lived at Klæbu Public Care Home, a state institution for people with intellectual disabilities, referred to at the time as the “feeble-minded.” The institution was established in 1917 and later became known as Halsetheimen before it was closed in 1991 as a consequence of Norway’s HVPU Reform, which phased out large residential institutions for people with intellectual disabilities.
Alfa Mathilde died in 1920 at the age of twenty-two. During the seventy-five years the institution was in operation, at least 444 residents died. Of these, 267 were buried in Klæbu Cemetery. The true number of former residents buried here is likely to be considerably higher.
In the year Alfa Mathilde died, twenty-two children were buried in Klæbu Cemetery, but she was the only one to receive a grave tablet. Most were not even buried in coffins; instead, they were wrapped in a shroud. As many as three children could be laid to rest in the same grave. The deaths in 1920 were probably caused by tuberculosis or one of the many epidemics that afflicted the institution over the years. Mortality was especially high in 1943, when up to five children’s bodies could lie in the mortuary at the same time. Several were buried on the same day.
It was not until 1952 that a policy was adopted requiring every deceased person to have an individual grave and a personal grave marker. At the grave of Alfa Mathilde Haugen, we are reminded of past attitudes towards those who were perceived as different, and of the many children who were buried without any memorial to mark their lives.
Following an initiative by the Klæbu Historical Society, the Church Council of Trondheim has established a memorial site in Klæbu Cemetery in honour of all the children who died at the institution.