“Yes—I’ll sign!” “Me too; it’s a disgrace!”

A petition was circulating in Ypsilanti in the summer of 1918. It demanded the release of Ypsilanti Civil War veteran John Norton, who was spending his seventh decade alone, widowed, and far from home, in Grand Rapids’ Soldiers’ Home.

“Sure, where do I sign?” “Hey, give me that pen.”

The petition was successful. Prior to John’s release, doctors examined him to make sure he was sane and able to live on his own. John passed the tests, and was released. He returned to Ypsilanti. He had been given $1,200 ($17,000 in 2008 dollars), meant as a pension to support him for the rest of his life.

He spent it in five days.

John spent the first chunk of money in opening a hotel in an old building on Huron Street once used as a post office. He offered prospective customers a “vegetable dinner, side dishes included,” for 15 cents.

No one came to eat John’s vegetable dinner.

The hotel failed.

John still had some of his $1,200. He spent the last of it on a second business venture, a shop selling used furniture. John arranged the furniture in his store and opened for business. It was his last chance.

No one came. Where were the petitioners who, with their signatures, had ransomed John from his forlorn life in Grand Rapids? These apparently fair-weather friends had faded away.

The furniture store failed. Now John was out of money, in an era without unemployment relief or Social Security. He was penniless. Homeless, he could not find one sympathetic person to take him in.

But he hadn’t been forgotten after all. The city appointed a guardian to John, B. R. Burbank. Burbank arranged for John to return to the Soldiers’ Home. John returned to Grand Rapids, and Burbank was relieved.

But for whatever reason, John soon returned to Ypsilanti. Now his plight was severe. Burbank searched for someone to put up the old soldier in a spare room, but failed. He arranged the only shelter he could think of—the county jail.

John slept in the jail, and ate prison food. The pockets in his worn-out clothes were empty, and the underwear beneath them, if he had any, was ragged. Winter was coming on. Burbank sold off some of the secondhand furniture in John’s failed shop and bought him a coat, a suit of clothes, and some underwear.

Either John’s conduct had called into question his sanity, or the city could not tolerate the spectacle of a homeless Civil War veteran living in the jail. “A movement is now on foot to have him again examined,” said the October 31, 1918 Ypsilanti Record, “and pronounced insane and sent to the Pontiac asylum.”

The paper concluded, “Poor old soldier! He served his country well, and now, overtaken by old age, with no friends, no home, and money that would have gone a long way to provide the comforts for his last remaining days lost in a pile of junk wished on him for the greed of the mighty dollar that a mind gone wrong could not protect.”

Images: October 31, 1918 Ypsilanti Record; photos courtesy Ypsilanti Archives.

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