Federal Relief Document ?

Perhaps the most troubling document I found is this 'official' sterilization document.  The document lists a number of witnesses, including family members, who agree to the sterilization of a young Corbin woman.  In regards to the parents, its hard to know if they understood what they were signing. The document indicates that they were illiterate, thus unable to read it.  The statement of the young woman's husband is also questionable.  Such a statement could have easily been coerced as his agreement to have his wife sterilized comes just before being sent to the penitentiary.  The school teacher's signature is harder to explain.  Ruby Ruebush likely was the teacher of this young Corbin woman at the one room Corbin School she attended.  The school was close to her house and Ruby almost certainly knew her.  Indeed the document gives her a status close to that of her own family.  As a school teacher she would be an authority on the young woman's 'mental fitness.'

Also troubling is the statement that the sterilization will be performed under the direction of the 'Senior Worker in Federal Relief Work,' Florence Strickler.  Strickler, the author of a 1935 Federal Relief Report titled 'Madison Park Families,' would go on to head the Madison County Department of Social Services. She signed off on every commitment document that I found in the Madison Courthouse.  Could this document indicate a Federal role in this young woman's sterilization?  Generally this was done by the state with upwards of 30 states having eugenic laws on their books at the time.      

In Warren's Washington Post article which features Rothstein's photographs,  the mother of this Corbin woman is depicted opposite a photograph of Ruby's sister, also a school teacher at the Corbin School.  The article was published two days after the young woman and her brother were committed  to the 'Colony.'  With the title 'Blue Ridge Hillbillies Get a Transfer -- From 19th to 20th Century.'  it fails to mention that she and her brother were 'transferred' to Virginia's infamous center for eugenics.

I blacked out family members' names to protect their privacy.