I would like to add to the post where someone mentioned she may have been forced into a mental hospital. Danny, I don't want to upset you but the more info the better, I think at least.
In college I did a study on mental illness. If I remember correctly it focused on lobotomies. I learned a lot about mental hospitals in the first half of the 20th century. As you already know, not good places. Even in the 50s. Women especially, were thrown into these hospitals for their entire lives for everything from being annoying to not following social norms. One example - a husband was irritated by his wife and thought she was too moody, complained too much about chores or something like that. Forced her to get a lobotomy, the thing pretty much erased her entire personality and she turned into a robot. A couple threw their teenage daughter in because she was too "rebellious", wanted to move out of state I recall, and she lived her entire life in there. She of course went insane after a few years, though she went in normal.
My poetry professor was alive in the 50s (not sure if he was a kid or a teen or both). He was a very, very quirky person (lived in Tibet for a time, rambled about mormons in class, etc). He told us that the 50s were the most horrible decade because society believed everyone should fit into a specific mold - think Leave it to Beaver. Anyone that was different was an outcast. Thank god for Kerouac and the beatniks (lol - English major here)
My point is that it is not far fetched at all that the judge threw her in there. Maybe he thought she was promiscuous or something - the reasons for throwing people into those places were endless.
I know the above is pretty much common knowledge. Found some more info on mental institutions in the 50s, specifically lobotomies.
I think there's a chance she was forced one and lost all feelings.
"Because this new form of lobotomy could be performed so quickly and easily, the trans- orbital craze swept the nations asylums. Freeman himself performed over 3,000 lobotomies and was labeled the traveling lobotomist. Trans- orbital lobotomies were performed on hundreds of Athens Asylum patients in the early 1950s. In a local newspaper, on November 20, 1953, the headline read Lobotomies are Performed on 31 Athens State Hospital Patients, and the article boasted that nearly 25 of those who received surgery would be able to go home with their relatives Sunday. Freeman and the trans-orbital lobotomy stirred up harsh criticism from those who learned of his flamboyant methodology. Due to the number of complications and deaths that resulted from the procedure, it was referred to as psychic mercy killing and euthanasia of the mind. This was by far mental health cares darkest hour."
Another interesting quote:
"Shortly after the asylum population explosion in the mid 1900s, when mental health treatment was arguably at its worst..."
http://www.toddlertime.com/advocacy/hospitals/Asylum/history-asylum.htm