Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family

John, Brian, and Michael

In 1971, the Galvins’ third son, John, married his girlfriend Nancy, whom he met while studying music at the University of Colorado. The experience of introducing Nancy to his family made John realize just how badly the situation had deteriorated: “Donald talking to the devil in the garbage can or pacing and fidgeting and prattling on, they saw Mimi at her worst, trying to control the eight children who remained at home while denying, at least outwardly, that anything was wrong at all” (102-103).

Meanwhile, Brian had become a local celebrity, thanks to a rock cover band he started as a teen. The group began to land jobs playing throughout Colorado, and Brian’s talent and success made his parents more willing to overlook his partying and drug use. In 1971, Brian dropped out of his college music program and moved to California with the intention of forming a new band.

Michael, the Galvins’ fifth child, was similarly disinterested in college. After graduating from high school in 1971, he spent the summer hitchhiking, exploring non-Christian forms of spirituality, and taking drugs. He was arrested twice on minor charges, and these events, coupled with Michael’s longstanding rebelliousness, worried Don and Mimi enough to send him to Denver General Hospital for psychiatric assessment. Michael, however, was confident that there was nothing wrong with him and soon checked himself out, opting to move in with Brian.

While in California, Michael’s free-spirited behavior again led to his arrest; he was given the chance to speak to a doctor while in jail, but he found to his dismay that this entailed being sent to a maximum-security mental hospital. All told, he spent five months in custody before pleading guilty and being released for time served. These experiences strengthened Michael’s skepticism regarding traditional psychiatry as a means of controlling those who “rejected the military-capitalist superstructure” (112). 

1967, Dorado Beach, Puerto Rico

In 1967, Rosenthal and other leaders in the field held a conference intended to put the two main theories of schizophrenia into conversation with one another. Here, Rosenthal also presented his latest findings: after studying patterns of mental illness in adopted children, Rosenthal concluded that heredity was far more important than environment in determining whether a person would develop schizophrenia.

Another researcher attending the conference, Irving Gottesman, came to a similar conclusion, arguing that several genes likely influenced the development of schizophrenia, perhaps in combination with environmental stressors: “The causes that would collaborate to bring someone close to this threshold might be genetic or environmental […] But without the critical mass of these factors, a person might live their entire life with a genetic legacy of schizophrenia and not become symptomatic” (117). This “diathesis-stress hypothesis” would become very influential, but at the time, it made little impact at the conference, where several psychoanalysts reiterated their belief that bad parenting was the primary cause of schizophrenia.

Donald

In 1972, all the Galvins except for John gathered at Hidden Valley Road for Thanksgiving. A fight soon broke out between Donald and Jim; their brawling destroyed the meal Mimi had prepared, and she smashed up the gingerbread house, crying that the children didn't deserve it.

Mimi had increasingly been unable to keep up appearances around friends and neighbors; at one point, she even put a trip wire across a shared road, complaining that she didn't like the noise a neighbor’s daughter made on her minibike. She was also increasingly short-tempered with the younger sons, who had begun getting into trouble; Matt, for instance, was caught stealing from a nearby house.

Meanwhile, Donald continued to cycle in and out of Pueblo, sometimes managing to hold a job in between hospitalizations. His improvements were always short-lived. At one point, he stabilized on a new medication, only to suffer another psychotic break after once again trying to visit Jean. Nevertheless, Donald was at home for the wedding of the Galvins’ sixth son, Richard, to a cheerleader he’d gotten pregnant; Donald interrupted the ceremony to insist the marriage wasn’t valid in God’s eyes. By 1973, Donald was back in Pueblo after attempting to strangle Mimi for refusing to give him a Benadryl. 

Brian

Around this time, Brian visited Hidden Valley Road and introduced his family to his girlfriend Lorelei. By the fall of 1973, however, the couple had broken up, and when Lorelei failed to show up for work one day, the police were called to her apartment; inside, they found that Brian had shot and killed Lorelei before turning the gun on himself. When Don and Mimi heard the news, they didn’t reveal the full circumstances of Brian’s death to the younger children or tell anyone that Brian was prescribed an antipsychotic a few months earlier.

Michael took the deaths especially hard. He had delayed a trip to visit Brian and felt that he might have been able to do something if he hadn’t. The younger brothers, now growing up and leaving home, seemed eager to distance themselves from everything that had happened. Joe began working for an airline in Denver, and Mark left for CU Boulder soon after.  

Don, Mimi, Peter, Margaret, and Mary

Don continued working despite his family’s troubles and was even promoted to president of the Rocky Mountain Arts and Humanities Foundation shortly after Brian’s death. In 1975, however, he suffered a severe stroke, and despite recovering physically, he experienced lingering memory problems that forced him to retire.

Don’s stroke had a traumatic impact on the Galvins’ youngest son, Peter, who began stealing and speaking in gibberish. He stabilized after a brief hospital stay, only to deteriorate rapidly after going to hockey camp: "Peter fell apart completely, wetting his bed, spitting on the floor, hitting the other campers. He left the camp for Brady Hospital, a private psychiatric clinic in Colorado Springs, where the doctors prevented anyone from visiting Peter for weeks” (133). When Mimi was finally able to visit, she found the conditions terrible, and removed Peter to the University of Colorado Hospital. There, the doctors blamed Mimi for Peter’s condition, which frustrated her so much she decided to only take her sons to Pueblo in the future. Meanwhile, during a visit he paid to Peter, Joe had admitted to experiencing similar symptoms: “Here was what appeared to be case number five, coming down the pike” (134).

Mimi’s despair came to a head when she received a call from Nancy Gary, a wealthy friend the Galvins had met through Don’s work. Mimi broke down and explained what was happening, and Nancy—concerned about the effect the boys’ illness might have on the girls— urged Mimi to send Margaret to live with her, which she did in early 1976.