person; and I do herewith transmit to you, the said superintendent of the Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-Minded, the interrogatories and answers thereto, taken by said Commission, touching the mental condition of the said Emma Buck and also the adjudication of the mental condition of the said Emma Buck, a copy of each of which has this day been delivered by me to the clerk of the court of the said city.
The Order of Commitment was supported by the three physicians: J. S. Davis, the mental examiner, J. C. Flippen, M.D. and W. H. Turner, M.D.
I, J. S. Davis, citizen of Virginia, physician and practitioner in the county of Albemarle, hereby certify that I have examined Emma Buck and find that she is feeble-minded, within the meaning of the law, and is a suitable subject for an institution for feeble-minded, the patient’s bodily health is poor and she has no contagious disorder.
The Order was further substantiated by the findings and adjudication of the Commission of the Commonwealth of Virginia, County of Albemarle.
Whereas, Emma Buck, who is suspected of being feeble-minded or epileptic…, was this day brought before us, C. D. Shackelford, Judge or Justice of said County and J. C. Flippen and W. H. Turner, Jr., two physicians (said J. S. Davis being the physician of said suspected person) constituting a commission to inquire whether the said Emma Buck be feeble-minded…and a suitable subject for an institution for the care, training, and treatment of feeble-minded or epileptic persons: and whereas the judge or justice has read the warrant and fully explained the nature of the proceedings to the said suspected person, and we the said physicians have in the presence (as far as practicable) of the said judge, or justice, by personal examination of witness, satisfied ourselves as to the mental condition of the said Emma Buck, we, the said judge or justice, and physicians constituting the commission aforesaid, do decide this day that the said Emma Buck is feeble-minded, and ought to be confined in an institution for the feeble-minded.
Five days later, on April 6, 1920 at 8:30 p.m., Emma Buck was admitted to Ward V of the State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded. According to the Charge Attendant, A. Jones, she brought with her, “$4.80, waist shirt, overshoes, 1 pr. shoes, 1 pr. hose, 1 coat, hat, undershirt 2, skirt.”
The clothes, the attendant noted, were “in very bad condition.”
Emma always insisted that she had not been indigent as the court said and her lack of possessions would seem to indicate. She insisted that her family had left her some money. In view of later findings about her family, she may well have been correct. However, only a few half-hearted inquiries were made in her behalf, such as Dr. Bell’s letter three years later to Caroline Wilhelm, a social worker in Charlottesville.
April 3, 1923
Miss Caroline E. Wilhelm
Charlottesville, Virginia
My Dear Miss Wilhelm:
Carrie Buck’s mother, Emma Buck, who was committed to this institution five years ago from Charlottesville, claims that she has about $460.00 on deposit in one of the banks of Charlottesville, which came to her through the sale of some land that the family had owned. I am going to impose on your time and willingness to the extent of using you to get in touch with the various banks in Charlottesville and ask if such a person had an account there, or has money on deposit.
Emma claims that the money was deposited in the “New National Bank” but she does not know the name. I wish to thank you in advance for this favor and express the hope that you get up this way to see us sometime.
Very truly,
J. H. Bell, M.D.
Superintendent
These inquiries had little effect. Emma Buck was to remain institutionalized for the rest of her life. Twenty-four years later, she died of pneumonia. The note on her chart read “disposition of body: buried in Colony Cemetery grave 575 on April 19, 1944.”
Eight days after her death, her son and daughter came to the Colony to inquire about their mother. “They did not know until their arrival to the hospital that she was dead,” officials said. Though upset, “they were most considerate and accepted the explanation that authorities had been unable to reach Emma’s other daughter, Carrie Buck.”
In the fall of 1923, J. T. Dobbs and his wife, Alice, petitioned the Honorable Charles D. Shackleford, Justice of the Peace and Judge of the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court for the City of Charlottesville, Virginia—the same court official who, three years previously, had committed Carrie’s natural mother, Emma Buck—to commit their foster child, Carrie Buck, to the State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded.
According to their testimony, Carrie, since the age of eleven, had exhibited symptoms of feeble-mindedness and epilepsy. Currently, they stated, these symptoms had worsened, making it impossible for them to control or care for her any longer. Though they had provided for her “as an act of kindness,” Mr. Dobbs’ monthly wages were no longer financially adequate to continue to do so.
Judge Shackleford appointed a Charlottesville physician, Dr. J. F. Williams, and the Dobbs’ family physician, Dr. J. C. Coulter, to examine Carrie, after which time he would institute a hearing at which the Dobbs family and Carrie herself would be required to testify as to the details of Carrie’s alleged illness.
The reports of the two doctors agreed that Carrie Buck was, in their judgments, “feeble-minded within the meaning of the law.”
When Carrie’s foster parents were questioned before the hearing, they added to the picture being painted of Carrie as a strange, ungovernable girl, subject to “hallucinations and outbreaks of temper” and born with a mental condition characterized by certain “peculiar actions.” Furthermore, they testified, she was dishonest and morally delinquent.
According to the Dobbs, Carrie had been born in Albemarle County and, at the time of her birth, her parents, Emma and Frank Buck, were unmarried. Later, they told the court, her mother had been diagnosed as feeble-minded and was now an inmate of the same institution in which the Dobbs desired to place Carrie. Her father’s whereabouts were unknown.
The Dobbs said they had received Carrie at the age of three from her mother, whom they referred to as Mrs. Emmett (sometimes called Emma Buck). Carrie had lived with them at their Grove Street house since then, attending school up to the sixth grade. She was, they stated, able to read, write, recognize and distinguish objects, but not to take “proper notice of things.”
Although the Dobbs family were quite certain that Carrie was feeble-minded, they were equally certain that she was capable of protecting herself against ordinary dangers without an attendant. They were equally uncertain about when her epileptic symptoms had appeared, saying at one point that her epilepsy had first appeared in childhood and, later, that they could not actually remember her being “subject to epilepsy, headaches, nervousness, fits or convulsions.”
Carrie had little to say at the hearing, assuming that whatever was about to be done for her would be in her best interests.
The hearing was held on January 23, 1924.
