Rebecca expanded her search into medical and institutional records, looking for any mention of unusual children, genetic conditions, or families confronting medical anomalies. What she found was disturbing.
In the Georgia State Archives, she discovered reports from the state sanitarium and from various county poorhouses from the 1890s. Several entries referenced “abnormal negro children” who had been surrendered by families or removed by authorities, children with physical differences, disabilities, or appearances that deviated from expectations. One entry from 1896 made Rebecca’s stomach turn: female child, approximately 4 years, negro parents, unusual pigmentation, surrendered to institution by family, county unknown.
The language was clinical and cruel. These children were treated as curiosities, defects, or shameful secrets to be hidden away.
Yet Clara Washington had not been hidden. Rebecca found her name in the 1899 Sunday school enrollment at Big Bethel: Clara Washington, age 8, intermediate class. She was attending church openly and participating in children’s programs. In 1902, Gate City Colored School records listed Clara as a student, though with an unusual notation: modified attendance schedule, supplementary home instruction approved by administration.
The school had made accommodations for her, but she was enrolled. She was being educated. She was part of the community.
Whatever Clara’s condition was, her family was not hiding her. They were raising her openly in a society that typically punished difference with violence or institutionalization. But Rebecca still did not know what that condition was. The photograph showed the visual evidence, but without medical expertise she could not interpret what she was seeing.
She contacted Dr. James Mitchell, a geneticist at Emory University whose research focused on hereditary conditions and their historical documentation. She sent him the digitally enhanced photograph without explanation, asking only, “What do you see when you look at this child?”
His response came within 2 hours. “Where did you find this? I need to know everything about this image.”
They met the following afternoon in his office. Dr. Mitchell had already printed the photograph in high resolution and pinned it beside modern clinical images on his bulletin board.
