TB, as well as for the proper benefits of “rejuvenation.” Sigmund Freud and W. B. Yeats were said to have had vasectomies to rejuvenate themselves. In 1899, the year before my birth, Ochsner published a paper on performing vasectomies on habitual criminals. Eugenics was revved! In 1907, Indiana passed a bill “to prevent procreation of confirmed criminals, idiots, rapists and imbeciles,” in other words, sterilization. Twenty-nine states joined in. When Eppitt arrived at the Maryland School for Feeble Minded Children, Sharp had already published a piece called “Vasectomy as a Means of Preventing Procreation in Defectives” and was urging sterilization in all state institutions. (We were surely defectives.)
Enter the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics. Before Hitler’s chancellorship started, a Reich sterilization law was drafted. Those who weren’t deemed fit to marry were tried in the hereditary health courts, where the enforcement of sterilization laws led to three hundred and twenty thousand people being sterilized from 1933 to 1945. Worse crimes happened in those dozen years, but there’s a bit of history.
Eppitt knew. Held steady by a guard’s elbow, b oys limped bowlegged across the field to their cottages. Girls, at some point after their first period, disappeared for an afternoon, returning wobbly, pale. Brumus was nicknamed Dr. Snip-Snip. There were rumors that a few of the older male guards had volunteered for the procedure. Even Brumus himself was said to have had it done by another doctor in town.
The girls knew what it meant: no pregnancy, no children. A few said they wanted the operation—girls from big families, like Eppitt’s, who’d been left because they cost too much to feed. They’d seen their mothers swell again and again, screaming bloody babies into the world, and then staggering through the house, slack with exhaustion. Or some tough girls wanted to be with boys and not bother with babies. Some had trysts with not only the boys but also the guards. Eppitt’s favorite, Gillup, was said to be a rounder. Spry and handsome, he had favorites, a pecking order. But even the girls who claimed to want the operation were different after it, mute when the snip-snip came up in conversation, their faces blank with a watery glint to their eyes.
I wanted to have a baby one day. There was a secret nursery at the Maryland School—children weren’t supposed to be accepted until age seven. But there were a few clandestine cribs; one of them had been my own. Eppitt and I deserved babies. This became my motivation for learning how to read—to get into Brumus’s files and mark that Eppitt was already sterile, operation done.
I had a facility for reading that startled the Owl. At one point, she asked Brumus if her task of teaching me to read was a joke. “Harriet can already read. She gets it as soon as I say it.”
Brumus, in disbelief, pulled a book from his desk, opened it, and pointed to a paragraph. “Read it!”
It was a bit about the heart. “I don’t know all of these words,” I said, skimming it.
“See there!” he said.
The Owl looked at me.
“I’m sorry!” I said. “I don’t know what a ‘ventricle’ is. I’ve never seen this word ‘aorta.’ And if a ‘valve’ is weakened by disease, what can anyone do about it? It’s a heart! Hearts work because of love, right? Mrs. Funk says they work because of God’s love!” I sniffled and wiped my nose, and there was a bright swatch of blood. I was an anxious bleeder as Eppitt was an anxious word blender.
Shortly after this, Brumus administered an IQ test, at the time a new phenomenon. He sat me at his desk, timing the test himself. Ever since I had talked about the ventricles and weakened valves and the love of God, he’d treated me differently. Actually, he seemed terrified of me and often spoke in hushed tones, and asked me if I was thirsty. He even offered me coffee, which wasn’t
Enter the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics. Before Hitler’s chancellorship started, a Reich sterilization law was drafted. Those who weren’t deemed fit to marry were tried in the hereditary health courts, where the enforcement of sterilization laws led to three hundred and twenty thousand people being sterilized from 1933 to 1945. Worse crimes happened in those dozen years, but there’s a bit of history.
Eppitt knew. Held steady by a guard’s elbow, b oys limped bowlegged across the field to their cottages. Girls, at some point after their first period, disappeared for an afternoon, returning wobbly, pale. Brumus was nicknamed Dr. Snip-Snip. There were rumors that a few of the older male guards had volunteered for the procedure. Even Brumus himself was said to have had it done by another doctor in town.
The girls knew what it meant: no pregnancy, no children. A few said they wanted the operation—girls from big families, like Eppitt’s, who’d been left because they cost too much to feed. They’d seen their mothers swell again and again, screaming bloody babies into the world, and then staggering through the house, slack with exhaustion. Or some tough girls wanted to be with boys and not bother with babies. Some had trysts with not only the boys but also the guards. Eppitt’s favorite, Gillup, was said to be a rounder. Spry and handsome, he had favorites, a pecking order. But even the girls who claimed to want the operation were different after it, mute when the snip-snip came up in conversation, their faces blank with a watery glint to their eyes.
I wanted to have a baby one day. There was a secret nursery at the Maryland School—children weren’t supposed to be accepted until age seven. But there were a few clandestine cribs; one of them had been my own. Eppitt and I deserved babies. This became my motivation for learning how to read—to get into Brumus’s files and mark that Eppitt was already sterile, operation done.
I had a facility for reading that startled the Owl. At one point, she asked Brumus if her task of teaching me to read was a joke. “Harriet can already read. She gets it as soon as I say it.”
Brumus, in disbelief, pulled a book from his desk, opened it, and pointed to a paragraph. “Read it!”
It was a bit about the heart. “I don’t know all of these words,” I said, skimming it.
“See there!” he said.
The Owl looked at me.
“I’m sorry!” I said. “I don’t know what a ‘ventricle’ is. I’ve never seen this word ‘aorta.’ And if a ‘valve’ is weakened by disease, what can anyone do about it? It’s a heart! Hearts work because of love, right? Mrs. Funk says they work because of God’s love!” I sniffled and wiped my nose, and there was a bright swatch of blood. I was an anxious bleeder as Eppitt was an anxious word blender.
Shortly after this, Brumus administered an IQ test, at the time a new phenomenon. He sat me at his desk, timing the test himself. Ever since I had talked about the ventricles and weakened valves and the love of God, he’d treated me differently. Actually, he seemed terrified of me and often spoke in hushed tones, and asked me if I was thirsty. He even offered me coffee, which wasn’t
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