Patton State Hospital, San Bernardino, California: Kelly, a psychiatric patient, voices his delusions about what he is going to do on his birthday. Drawing by D.R. Wilder, ca. 1954.

[1954?]

1 drawing : pencil ; sheet 30 x 23 cm

Kelly. "Yes sir! ..." He says: Yes sir! Sunday's my birthday! Oh boy -- yessir,-- My ol' lady's coming up wit twenty-five hundred gallons of ice cream,-- yes sir! -- An' then I'm going to Arrowhead tuh pick up my nine-teen fifty-six Mercury Thunderbolt -- yessir -- an' then I'm goin' to Camarillo to get cleaned out -- so'sn I kin go back to Brentwood, oh boy -- yessir, 'n then I'm going to draw seveny t'ousand dollars outta the bank, -- 'n then am I going to have a time!??! -- oh boy yessir -- an' blah blah blah!"

One drawing of twelve in a sketchbook inscribed "Dudley R. Wilder". There is a record of a Dudley Raymond Wilder (1916-1957) who worked as a commercial artist in California from the 1930s to the 1950s and served as a staff sergeant in the US Marine Corps in 1943-1944. The quality of the drawings, and some of the military references, suggest they could well be by him, possibly in the last years of his life where confinement preceded an early death at the age of 41

Wellcome Collection 2046879i