A. S. Priddy
Superintendent
Dr. Priddy was quite aware of the importance of complying with the full letter of the law. He had already been involved in Mallory v. Priddy, a case in which he was found not guilty (March 1, 1918) of intentionally sterilizing an illegitimate young girl during a normal abdominal operation. In a later appeal, Mallory v. Virginia Colony for the Feebleminded (June 13, 1918), he was again acquitted of the charges, but the court concluded that certain practices were not quite within the confines of the 1916 law concerning feeblemindedness.
Although conscious of legal parameters, Dr. Priddy, nevertheless, considered his power as a physician absolute. At Carrie’s subsequent trial, he would aver, “I have a right to do whatever is best for the physical and mental advantage of the patient.”
On May 5th, a letter came to Dr. Priddy from Miss Wilhelm, explaining that Carrie’s baby had been born and she was now ready to enter the Colony. She also described the arrangements which had been made for the baby.
My dear Dr. Priddy,
It has been very difficult for us to decide what disposition to make in the case of Carrie Buck as we feel that a baby whose mother and grandmother are both feeble-minded ought not be placed out in a home for adoption. However, the people who have had Carrie in their home ever since she was a little girl, are willing to keep the baby with the understanding that it will be committed later on if it is found to be feeble-minded also. We are therefore anxious to send Carrie to you as soon as possible and should be glad to know when you can receive her.
Can you send someone for Carrie, or send us transportation for an attendant for her.
Very truly yours,
(Miss) Caroline Wilhelm
Secretary
Dr. Priddy responded to Miss Wilhelm on May 7th with a letter which opened the way for Carrie’s commitment to the Colony. This letter would alter the course of Carrie’s life, and her experience would effect the lives of thousands of other people.
Dear Miss Wilhelm:
Replying to your letter of the 5th about Carrie Buck will say that I cannot advise you what disposition to make of the baby other than to place it in the City Almshouse. Of course, should this child be ascertained to be feeble-minded we will receive it here. However, the law puts a limit of 8 years in feebleminded cases and we could not take it until it is eight years of age. I am enclosing transportation for attendant and her (Carrie) to Lynchburg. If you will kindly fill in name of attendant and advise me on what train she will arrive we will meet her at the station. The early morning local train comes into the Union Station at 9 A.M. and is the most convenient one for us to meet and whoever comes with her could return on the 12 o’clock train.
Very truly,
A. S. Priddy
Superintendent
Boarding the early train, Carrie and Carolyn Wilhelm made their way to the hospital in Madison Heights, overlooking the James River, Lynchburg and the mountains.
The 1905 will of S. R. Murkland of Amherst County had left a parcel of land to Western State Hospital. It consisted of about two hundred acres on the James River looking down from the heights north of Lynchburg. The purpose of this gift was to provide “extra comforts” for the patients of that hospital. Mr. Murkland’s epileptic son was being cared for in that institution, which was nearly eighty miles away from the farm willed to it.
In February of 1906 the Virginia State Legislature passed an act authorizing the Board of Directors of Western State Hospital and the General Board of State Hospitals to build on the Murkland tract a facility for the care, treatment and employment of three hundred epileptic patients. Through Mr. Murkland’s generosity and compassion, the Virginia State Epileptic Colony was to become an institution of the State of Virginia.
This action, however, did not come easily. The legislature had not yet acted on the matter in 1906 when Senator Aubrey Strode of Amherst explained, in a letter to a physician friend, Dr. George Harris, that the bill was meeting with some resistance. Apparently the economic benefits of the placement of the institution had become a matter of considerable political interest:
Dear Doctor:
We have only a fair chance of getting our Epileptic Colony Bill through. The House Committee on Prisons and Asylums gave the bill a unanimously favorable report and it is now on the calendar in the House. In the Senate committee, however, we have as yet been unable to take up the bill because of the press of other matters, but hope it will reach it next week.
We will need all the help we can get, as such institutions are much sought after and even if we succeed in having it established, some other locality may endeavor to offer inducements to switch it away from the Murkland farm, but we will do the best we can in the matter. It would not be a bad idea if you could get any of your friends in Lynchburg interested in the matter…
The Board of State Hospitals was also slow in moving the matter along. Again Strode intervened. In February of 1907 he wrote about the situation to L. W. Lane, the Commissioner of Hospitals:
Dear Sir:
Please kindly advise me of the latest action taken by the Hospital Board in reference to the Epileptic Colony which it was directed to establish on the Murkland land in Amherst County by the act approved February 20, 1906, and for which $25,000.00 was appropriated, one-half thereof being available before March 1, 1907.
Any information that you can give me in reference to the steps taken by your board up to this time to comply with this act will be appreciated.
Yours respectfully,
A. E. Strode
Throughout the establishment process, Strode, who was later to be the prosecuting attorney in the case of Buck v. Bell, exerted his personal energy and political influence. Contained in his collected papers are copies of letters he constantly wrote to other politicians, hospital superintendents and State Hospital Board members on matters related to the establishment of the institution. He was clearly an important force, indicated by the fact that when the Governor finally appointed the three members of the Board of Directors to manage the affairs of the new Colony for Epileptics, Irving P. Whitehead was one of the prominent members.
Irving P. Whitehead had been a childhood friend of Aubrey Strode. They had grown up on adjoining Amherst farms and remained friends and professional associates throughout their lives. Ironically, but not completely by accident, Irving Whitehead was later to be the attorney appointed to defend Carrie Buck’s interests in her sterilization test case.
The Board of Directors assumed their offices in April of 1910. That same month, they selected Dr. Albert Sidney Priddy to be the first superintendent of the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics.
Albert Priddy was born of an old and respected Virginia family in 1865. His genealogy traced back to an ancestor who had come to the Colonies in 1650.
Dr. Priddy received his academic preparation in a private school then known as Shotwell Institute. He later studied medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Baltimore. He practiced medicine in Keysville, Virginia, his hometown, until 1901. It was then that he took a position as assistant physician at Southwestern State Hospital. In 1906 he was appointed superintendent of that institution.
Priddy had always taken an active interest in politics, successfully merging his two professions. He represented Charlotte County in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1893 until 1894 and again from 1900 to 1901. During his service in the General Assembly he was a member of the committee on prisons and asylums, and was one of the authors of a law providing pensions for Confederate veterans who had become disabled since the war. In 1900 he was patron in the House of