Anna (feral child)

Alice Marie Harris (March 6, 1932 – August 6, 1942), known under the pseudonym Anna, was a feral child from Pennsylvania who was raised in isolation and was an illegitimate child.

From the age of five months to six years, she was kept strapped down in the attic of her home, malnourished and unable to speak or move.

Anna was born March 6, 1932, in Perryopolis, Pennsylvania, about 17 mi outside of Uniontown.

She was the second illegitimate child of her mother, Martha, who was 27 at the time of her discovery.

She lived with her father, David, a widower farmer who strongly disapproved of her indiscretions.

After Anna was found, Martha married a man named George I. Eisenhauer.

She was discovered and rescued in 1938, but died at the age of ten before she was able to fully recover from hemorrhagic jaundice.

She is often compared to the feral children cases of Isabelle and Genie.

Anna was discovered around February 6, 1938, by E. M. Smith of the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society about seventeen miles from Uniontown.

The humane officer found her after a report had been filed from the Woman's Club of Star Junction.

Other reports had also been spread that a child was kept in the house, yet she was never seen by visitors.

When she was found, the Humane officer reported that: "The child was dressed in a dirty shirt and napkin. Her hands, arms, and legs were just bones, with skin drawn over them, so frail she couldn't use them. She never grew normally, and the chair on which she lay, half reclining and half sitting was so small the child had to double her legs partly under her".

The chair that she was found in was tilted backwards to lean on a coal bucket with her arms tied above her head, leaving her unable to talk or move.

Charges of negligence to a minor were brought against David and Martha.

David died at the age of 72 in 1948.

His other children included daughter Catherine and sons Jacob and Harold.

Anna was born in a nurse's private home and was brought to the family farm, but shortly after was sent to live at Martha's friend's house.

A local minister considered adopting her, but decided against it when he discovered she had vaginitis.

At the age of three weeks, she was sent to live in a children's home.

There, she was said to be "terribly galled and otherwise in very bad shape".

After eight weeks in the home, Martha was called to come collect her.

In her place, she sent a man and his wife to see her in hopes of adopting her, but the agency refused to give permission because they disapproved of the couple.

Later, Martha came herself and gave her to the couple.

A short time after, a social worker found her at this home and attempted to convince Martha and David to take her back.

At this time, she was over four months old.

She was taken to another children's home, where a medical examination revealed she had vaginitis, umbilical hernia, and a skin rash.

She was sent to a private foster home after three weeks in the children's home.

Because Martha and David could not pay for the child's care, Anna was sent back to live on the family farm at the age of five and a half months.

In an attempt to avoid her father's anger, Martha kept her in an attic-like room on the second floor.

Martha was busy working on the farm during the day and occasionally went out at night.

Anna was given only enough care to keep her alive and received no instruction or positive attention.

She was fed virtually nothing but cow's milk and was strapped down to a chair or cot for the majority of her early life.

An article in the New York Times stated that she had been kept in the attic room, which was without windows or ventilation, for two years, and then kept for three years more in the storage room in the second floor.

However, a later report in the American Journal of Sociology by Kingsley Davis considers it “doubtful that the child's hands at the time of discovery were tied.

It is more likely that she was confined to her crib in the first period of life and at all times kept locked in her room to keep her from falling down the steep stairs leading immediately from the door and to keep the grandfather from seeing her.

It is doubtful if the child was ever kept in the attic, as the report also stated”.

When interviewed by officers, David Harris stated, "I made her keep it up there, care for it and feed it as a sort of punishment. I forgave her first [illegitimate child], but not the second".

The same New York Times article quotes Martha: "My father wouldn't let me bring it downstairs. He said he didn't want to see it around. I had to run up and down, up and down, to feed and take care of it. I had to feed it all the time. It was awfully hard".

The father's name was withheld, but Martha said he was a well-to-do farmer.

She died in Philadelphia in 1959.