Carol C. Wall

Abstract

I was 31 years old, married, and the mother of four children. We were living in Farmington, Connecticut. Three of the children were at home. They were eight, five, and a little over two years-old. And then we had a child that had been born with a microcephalic head, who was living in a Connecticut institution. She was very profoundly affected by this small brain, and so she went into an institution when she was only eight or nine months old. We were paying part of the expense of her being in an institution. I worked part-time as a substitute teacher in the local schools and my husband was a librarian. He loved his profession, but librarians’ salaries are not great. We had a very happy marriage—I am still married to the same man today and we’ve been together now for over 47 years—but we really did have some economic struggles. The difference between being poor and being broke though, is of course, we had the advantage of having had really wonderful educations. Even so, we still barely hung onto the middle class at that time. My husband had wanted to get a vasectomy after the last child had been born. But it was illegal in Connecticut and we really couldn’t afford his time off or the money for him to go out of state to get a vasectomy.

Carol C. Wall is married and the mother of three. Her illegal abortion in 1966 inspired her to work on behalf of reproductive rights and she has been working in that arena ever since. She has served as director of several Planned Parenthood chapters, worked in the area of international family planning, and most recently was a staff member for Catholics for a Free Choice. She lives on Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

Carol C. Wall was interviewed by David Cline on July 13, 2004.