Carrie Buck - Early Life

Early Life

Carrie Buck was born in Charlottesville, Virginia, the first of three children born to Emma Buck; she was soon joined by a sister, Doris Buck, and a brother, Roy Smith. Little is known about Emma Buck other than that she was poor and married to, then abandoned by, Frederick Buck. Emma was committed to the Virginia Colony for the Epileptic and the Feeble-minded after being accused of immorality, prostitution, and having syphilis. In order to ensure that the family did not reproduce, Carrie Buck’s sister Doris was also sterilized when she was hospitalized for appendicitis, although she was never told that sterilization had been performed. In later years she married and she and her husband attempted to have children; she did not discover the reason for their lack of success until 1980.

After her birth, Buck was placed with foster parents, John and Alice Dobbs. She attended public school until the sixth grade and then continued to live with the Dobbs, helping out with chores around the house.

At 17, Buck became pregnant as a result of being raped. Subsequently, on January 23, 1924, Buck’s foster parents had committed her to the Virginia Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-Minded on the grounds of feeblemindedness, incorrigible behavior and promiscuity. On March 28, 1924, she gave birth to a daughter, Vivian. Since Buck had been declared mentally incompetent to raise her child, her former foster parents adopted the baby. Her commitment may have been due to the family's embarrassment since Carrie's pregnancy was the result of being raped by the Dobbs’s nephew.

Vivian was adopted by the Dobbs family, who had also raised Carrie, for a time. Under the name "Vivian Alice Elaine Dobbs," she attended the Venable Public Elementary School of Charlottesville for four terms, from September 1930 until May 1932. Stephen Jay Gould wrote:

She was an, neither particularly outstanding nor much troubled. In those days before grade inflation, when C meant "good, 81-87" (as defined on her report card) rather than barely scraping by, Vivian Dobbs received As and Bs for deportment and Cs for all academic subjects but mathematics (which was always difficult for her, and where she scored a D) during her first term in Grade 1A, from September 1930 to January 1931. She improved during her second term in 1B, meriting an A in deportment, C in mathematics, and B in all other academic subjects; she was on the honor roll in April 1931. Promoted to 2A, she had trouble during the fall term of 1931, failing mathematics and spelling but receiving an A in deportment, B in reading, and C in writing and English. She was "retained in 2A" for the next term -- or "left back" as was formerly said, and scarcely a sign of imbecility as I remember all my buddies who suffered a similar fate. In any case, she again did well in her final term, with B in deportment, reading, and spelling, and C in writing, English, and mathematics during her last month in school. This offspring of "lewd and immoral" women excelled in deportment and performed adequately, although not brilliantly, in her academic subjects.

By all accounts Vivian was of average intelligence, far from feeblemindedness. She died a month later at age eight of "enteric colitis", an intestinal disease.