Nessary Lies

Diane Chamberlain is the author of the fiction book set in North Carolina called Necessary Lies. The story is about a poor family living on a farm in exchange for working on the tobacco farm. Fourteen year old Ivy is trying to protect her grandmother, her older sister with mental illness, and her two year old nephew. A new social worker begins to work with the family by the name of Jane Forrester. Newly married to a pediatrician, Jane struggles to connect with her families who are impoverished. Shocked by the county's use of eugenics, she protests when her supervisor tells her to apply for Ivy to be sterilized. Ivy's older sister was sterilized after she gave birth but was told she had an appendectomy. This was considered a necessary lie. Jane protests which gets her in trouble at work and at  home. This was a fascinating story. After the story was finished the author gave more information about the eugenics board in North Carolina that started in 1933. North Carolina started sterilizing people in 1919. After World War Two most states quit the eugenics program because of it's association with the Nazi's. But North Carolina increased the number of sterilizations after World War Two. People in institutions were sterilized. People with mental illness were sterilized. People with epilepsy were sterilized. People who got welfare were sterilized. I was shocked to learn that this went on until 1977. At first very few black people were sterilized but by the 1960's most of the eugenics victims were people of color. I find it crazy to think such wrongs were considered to be right.