‘We Must Never Forget the Evil That Occurred to Individuals With Developmental Disabilities’

The Ones We Sent Away

Jennifer Senior’s aunt Adele was institutionalized as a toddler because of an intellectual and developmental disability. For the September 2023 issue, Senior considered the life Adele could have lived.

Jennifer Senior’s story about her aunt’s institutionalization struck a deep chord with me. My family has a similar story, made worse when I found out that I was the reason my sister was sent to a state “school.” My mother cared for her oldest child, who was developmentally delayed, for the first two years of her life. But in 1950, she surrendered her to the state under intense pressure from family members, who felt that my expectant mother wouldn’t be able to handle a newborn—me—and a high-needs daughter at the same time. My sister languished at the “school” for many years and never learned to walk. She died shortly after the institution was closed; an exposé had made public