I would like any available biographical information about Mary Jane
Ward author of The Snake Pit.  Was this really autobiographical?
Interested in obituary or name changes through marriage/divorce.  Was
Mary Jane Ward her real name?

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 10 Oct 2005 09:17 PDT

gravemistake-ga,

As far as I know, Ms. Ward is still alive and (I hope) well.  Do you
have reason to believe otherwise?

As for her bio, I've seen nothing to indicate that The Snake Pit is
autobiographical.  Again, do you have reason to believe otherwise?

Let me know,

pafalafa-ga

This obit for a psychoanalyst give some information about Ms. Ward:
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/12/national/12CHRZ.html?ex=1129089600&en=420c304954564a58&ei=5070

Dr. Gerard Chrzanowski, a psychoanalyst who colleagues say was the
model for the caring psychiatrist in the best-selling 1946 novel "The
Snake Pit" and the famous 1948 film based on it, died Nov. 1 at his
home in Manhattan. He was 87.

"The Snake Pit," an autobiographical novel by Mary Jane Ward, told of
the experiences of a woman in a crowded mental hospital where therapy
for schizophrenia included being wrapped in wet, cold sheets, "boiled"
in a bathtub and given electric shock treatment. Her few moments of
gentle care come when she talks to the psychiatrist she calls "Dr.
Kik."
. . .
In a published essay, Dr. Chrzanowksi named Miss Ward as one of his patients . . .

Dr. Militades Zaphiropoulos, who worked at Rockland State Hospital in
Orangeburg, N.Y., when Dr. Chrzanowski was treating Miss Ward there .
. .

Because of the difficulty Americans had in saying his name, Dr.
Chrzanowski (pronounced shar- NAHF-ski) was called Dr. Kik, Dr.
Zaphiropoulos said. In her book, Miss Ward described Dr. Kik as having
an unpronounceable tangle of consonants in his name and an undefinable
European accent.
. . .
As for Miss Ward, she suggested in her book that Dr. Kik believed she
was in danger of a recurrence of her problem after her release from
the mental hospital. She suffered a second breakdown in 1957, and a
third in 1969. She died in 1981.

This is a shakier source, but contains more information:
http://www.raintreecounty.com/bioenig.html
My father's double second cousin, Mary Jane Ward, wrote the novel, The
Snake Pit, which had been a best selling novel in 1946, also sold to
the movies. (The press pointed out that this was a pretty good showing
for a family of Hoosier hicks.) Ward wrote her largely
autobiographical novel based on her incarceration in Rockland State
Hospital, New York, in 1941.

She was diagnosed at the time as suffering from schizophrenia, but
like many she was probably suffering from bipolar illness. She was
hospitalized four times during her life--with the onset of manic
symptoms that seemed not to coincide with any particular stress, that
seemed to come out of nowhere. Even so she managed to publish eight
novels, three of which dealt with mental illness.

Mary Jane Ward died on February 17, 1981. There's a profile of her in
Current Biography in 1946 (most libraries should have a copy of this
magazine). Because of the stigma of mental illness at the time the
novel was published, Ms. Ward denied that there were any
autobiographical elements to it.

She was born on Aug. 27, 1905 in Fairmount, Indiana. She was married
to statistician and writer Edward Quayle who died in 1992.

She was also the cousin of author Ross Lockridge, who wrote RAINTREE
COUNTY, and who had his own bout with depression and mental illness.
This is from a speech made by Lockridge's son Larry that is posted at
http://www.raintreecounty.com/leastlik.html


"But there is strong evidence for a second reading of
matters--biological or possibly genetic predisposition. My father's
double second cousin, Mary Jane Ward, wrote the novel The Snake Pit
which was the best-selling novel in 1946, only two years before
Raintree County. It, too, was sold to the movies. This was a pretty
good showing for a family of Hoosier hicks, as the press pointed out.
Mary Jane Ward wrote her largely autobiographical novel based on her
incarceration in Rockland State Hospital, New York, in 1941.

She was diagnosed at the time as suffering from schizophrenia, but
like many she was probably suffering from bipolar illness. She was
hospitalized four times during her life, hospitalizations that seemed
not to coincide with any particular stress, that seemed to come out of
nowhere. Even so she managed to publish eight novels, three of which
dealt with mental illness. At the time of my father's illness, when he
was entering a hospital under an assumed name, she was ironically a
national spokesperson for openness about mental health is sues. Sadly
she was no more able to help my father than was his loving but
completely baffled wife."


Hope this helps some.