Trigger Warning: Family Violence, Emotional Abuse, Physical Abuse, Mental Abuse, Incest, Childhood Abuse, Sexual Assault, Substance Use and Abuse. Please do not continue if any of the above topics trigger you.
Methodology: Due to Iris Wright being of a newer generation, I relied mostly on Newspaper Articles to piece together her later years. I did have the West Virginia Vital Documents available through the web as well as the 1950 census at my disposal once a last name could be surmised.
Trauma
Trauma can cause devastating repercussions for a person. Even second hand trauma can trigger trauma responses. A child who has been forced to deal with multiple abuses harms that individual’s ability to grow and adapt emotionally and mentally. Physically, such abuse, has been shown to biologically impede physiological systems and hamper proper brain development.
Trauma-informed care has been a key tick mark on agencies agendas that deal with at-risk populations over the last decade or so, be that the justice systems, mental health systems, or otherwise. Even with the extensive research and knowledge that has been gained in the past few decades by studying risk factors and associating these risk factors with maladaptive behaviors, there is still a lot of work to be done. Iris was living in a time when victims did not come forward out of fear of ridicule and were many times forced to harbor the burden of the crimes of another on their young backs. Individuals still do not come forward out of fear, shame, embarrassment and even a sense of belonging and normalcy. I was apprehensive to move forward on the trail of Iris. If I were to have completed a risk assessment on her based on my knowledge of her situation, she would have several medicaid worthy risk factors. Based on my prior research, there did not appear to be many protective factors in her favor.
While there is no one way to define at-risk, different agencies have historically assessed at-risk youth for mental, emotional and behavioral disorders by looking at a number of risk factors, some gender specific, with what are referred to as “Protective Factors.” I know the South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice uses something they refer to as RANA – 4th Generation Risk Assessment, which looks at everything from the juvenile’s medical, substance use, criminal and mental health history to determine a risk level.
Adolescent Risk Assessment
I created an example Adolescent Risk Assessment from the information gained on Youth.gov and my previous knowledge from conducting risk assessments for individuals entering the juvenile justice system in South Carolina. This is something that would not have been available at the time of Iris but can help place her risk levels for mental health (I am not a clinician and this is not a definitive, clinical diagnosis). I did leave out risk factors that only pertained to males. Some of this is conjecture as the information was unavailable.
Since much about Iris's later life includes family members who are still living, the names used will be limited to those who have passed away. All other family members will be labeled by relationship to Iris, followed by a number showing their year of birth.
I started my search by searching the following information on Ancestry.com. I decided to begin
with a broad search that limited the parameters to West Virginia, where I knew her to be in the mid 1940s when all this was going on and set her birthday at 1930. I wanted to see if any new items had been uploaded since my last search of her name. In this type of search Ancestry automatically sets the focus to "All Collections" and places the first name, year born, and location sliders to "broad."
The slider for the last name is placed on "exact, sounds like and similar." If you want to get even more exacting, you can change the first name and/or last name slider to "[E]xact, similar, sounds like, and initials" or "[E]xact and similar" or [E]xact." The birth year slider lets you redefine the date of birth to “broad,” “+/- 10 years,” “+/- 5 years,” “+/- 2 years,” “+/- 1 year” and “exact.” The location slider goes from broad to exact for the location [4].
Original Search Return with Record Hits
As you can see in the screen shot above, there are over 10,000 records in just three of the 11 broad based filterable categories on ancestry [4]. Going through these records one by one would be tedious at best, and most likely, impossible. I would try to complete the math but math is not my forte. I am going to change just one variable. I am interested to see if Iris may have gotten married and changed her name. That might be why I never found any newer records records on Newspapers.com in my earlier searches for information about her while learning about the trial.
I adjusted the Filter "under birth, marriage & death" to just show "Marriage & Divorce." Ancestry had 4,320 hits with the broad parameters but the algorithm did place West Virginia Marriage Records ahead of others which led me to an indexed record for an Iris Bessie Wright who married a Joseph John Zebrook in 1946 in Raleigh, West Virginia [5]. This record intrigued me because Vasper's mother was called Bessie and many times kinship groups in this area kept names in the family. I followed the indexed lead which only gave basic information: names, gender, marriage date, marriage place. It also included the source information. According to the source information, the records were originally indexed from a search done through Family Search.
Next Stop. Family Search.
This gives me the index catalogue information, so I can narrow down the parameters of my search to this particular collection of records. While there was not an exact collection with these dates, I was able to find the collections below. Since I knew the marriage occurred in 1946, I knew the collection that stopped in 1932 would not have the document I sought (if there was a copy of the marriage license). I decided my first stop would be the first collection to come back, "West Vriginia Marriages, 1780 - 1970" [6]. The second record was Iris Bessie Wright marriage to Joseph John Zebrook and there was a link to view the image [7]. The image link took me to the West Virginia Archives and History site where they maintain digitized records of a number of vital records. Due to the coding of the site, security permissions can make it impossible to view the records. The only way I have found that works for me is to use Microsoft Edge but reload
the site in Internet Explorer mode, which was exactly what I had to do here. I was using an updated version of chrome that would not allow me to see the images.
Married at 17
Was this our Iris? After looking through the marriage application, it became apparent that this appeared to be our Iris. Her father's name was V.L. Wright and her mother is labeled as deceased and we know this to be true. Her mother's name is recorded as Annie Wright and her father is recorded as V.L. Wright. We also see that Iris and her soon to be husband reside in Rhodell, West Virginia, the area where Iris was living in 1946, going through the trial [8]. I was taken aback by the year of this marriage as this would have been occurring during the time of Vasper's trial. It also made me question her husband's motives as I was envisioning a 17 year old girl who had been through a lot being married off to a 23 year old. My bias definitely came into play with my initial reactions to this marriage information.
A Family with Children
The next document I searched for was the U.S.1950 Federal Census (okay, I did do a quick search through ancestry for any divorces that may have happened to no avail). Four years later and only four years after the abusive upbringing she knew, I found her in the U.S. 1950 Federal Census with Joseph John Zebrook, 26, and a son, 2 years old [9]. She had a two year old son, meaning she had her first child at 18.
With this new last name, I filtered for city directories next and found that in 1957 Iris was listed as a clerk at the Beckley Drug Co. Further down the page next to “Jos J” Zebrook, we find her husband listed as a teacher at Mabscott School and he and his wife resided at “h302 Orchard Ave.” [10]. According to the West Virginia Property Viewer, 302 Orchard Avenue, Beckley, WV is a one-story brick residential structure that was built in 1950. It has five rooms and a basement [11].
I continued searching for Iris Zebrook on Newspapers.com and came across an article from 1952 that listed her as one of 36 people to pass their operator’s license [12]. We had learned that Iris worked as a clerk in 1957, so she had to have some level of education. As a teacher, her husband would have been educated, so I began learning more about Iris and him as well. I went on Newspapers.com and found Joseph’s obituary, which gave some insight into Iris and her family. Based on the information in the obituary, Joseph and his family resided in Delaware where he had been a teacher in “Newark Special District” for 19 years. His wife, Iris survived him as well as one son and three daughters and two grandchildren [13]. While it was sad to see yet another tragedy, it was uplifting to see that Iris got out of the small town she grew up in and away from the catastrophe of a family she was born into.
Snip-its (Information obtained from Newspapers.com Collection of Papers)
Iris’s oldest daughter was born in 1950 and marries a gentleman in 1969 who was a Private First Class in the Marine Corps, which must have been extremely stressful as this would be right in the midst of the Vietnam War. She, at the time of marriage, was finishing high school. She had her sister listed as a bridesmaid and her brother as an usher. They would go on to have children of their own. They would get divorced in the 1990s, but she appears to continue to be a successful human with ties to her family.
Iris’s middle daughter was born in 1958. She married in 1976, and I found no evidence to indicate a divorce, with the most recent newspaper information coming from a 2002 purchase of a residence together. I found evidence that they had one son.
Iris’s youngest daughter was born in 1959 with unknown date of marriage. She and her husband had two children. They faced tragedy when their 17 year old died suddenly. No evidence of divorce found.
Iris’s son, who was the eldest as he was born in 1948, married in 1982 and had at least two children. At his wedding ceremony in 1982, his son was listed as a junior groomsman (not sure if he was previously married or had the child out of wedlock), his sister was the matron of honor, his cousin and 3 brothers-in-law were the groomsmen. The family participation and support of this marriage was evident. What really struck me was the education level of her son and daughter-in-law. The bride had a master’s degree and Iris’s son was an associate engineer at Westinghouse corporation and held two degrees from the University of Delaware. He, unfortunately, passed away at the age of 69 from a sailing accident.
One of his sons (Iris's Grandson) tragically followed approximately a year and a month following his father’s passing via a drug overdose caused by heroine laced with fentanyl. According to the article I read, he had been battling his addiction for years. This is a common theme within my family.
Genogram
I continued to search through newspapers.com to get a better feel for Iris’s later years. She seemed to have a full life with children and grandchildren surrounding her. Her immediate family of her husband, one son and three daughters expanded over the years to include multiple grandchildren and great grandchildren. Because a number of these descendants and their families are still living, I created a genogram that shows known trauma in these families without using names. Most relationships shown are based upon their relationship to Iris (daughter, son, grandson...). The spouses tied to grandson1are, in fact, his spouses and not the spouses of Iris. His step-father is also listed as step-father to grandson 1 and brother to step-brother of grandson 1. I did this to show the complex relationships in this small segment of her family.
While drug addiction does rear its ugly head, there seems to be massive improvements with Iris's adult relationships. Throughout the articles I read, Iris's daughters all got married and had children of their own. Not only were her children well educated, many of them married well-educated partners, some of which were military. Seeing the articles about wedding engagements in the local newspapers was thrilling as I felt I gained just a little more insight into this side of my family. Further, education has always been important to me and is partially responsible for the path I chose. I never understood where this came from as college seemed to be a foreign option for the generations before me as I did not know of any family member that was college educated. While I do not know Iris, it is difficult to believe she would not be an advocate of education as her children went on to earn bachelors and masters degrees.
Source Information
[1] Lo Iacono L, Trentini C and Carola V (2021), Psychobiological Consequences of Childhood Sexual Abuse: Current Knowledge and Clinical Implications. Frontiers in Neuroscience, Journal Article, Volume 15 Sec. Neuroendocrine Science, Published 02 December 2021, (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2021.771511), Accessed 13 Nov. 2023.
[2] Youth.gov | Interagency Working Group on Youth Programs. Risk and Protective Factors for Youth, (https://youth.gov/youth-topics/youth-mental-health/risk-and-protective-factors-youth) : Accessed 30 Nov. 2023.
[3]”Search people,” Ancestry.com (ancestry.com : Accessed on 27 November 2023), search for first name “Iris”, last name “Wright,” estimated birth year “1930,” possible location “West Virginia,”
[4]”Search people,” Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/search/?name=Iris_Wright&event=_West+Virginia-USA&birth=1930 : Accessed on 27 November 2023), search for first name “Iris”, last name “Wright,” estimated birth year “1930,” possible location “West Virginia,”
[5] “Search,”Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/search/categories/bmd_marriage/?name=Iris_wright&event=_West+Virginia-USA&birth=1930 : Accessed on 27 November 2023), filter search for Ancestry category “Birth, marriage & death.”
[6] West Virginia, U.S., Marriages Index, 1785-1971 [database on-line]. Ancestry.com. (https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/10679098:2538?tid=&pid=&queryId=44c5eb0b2a749a06bb49c65f8dcebdd3&_phsrc=Uzu69&_phstart=successSource : Accessed 27 Nov 2023). Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. Original data: "West Virginia Marriages, 1853–1970." Index. FamilySearch, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2008, 2009. Digital images of originals housed in County Courthouses in various counties throughout West Virginia. Marriage records.
[7] "West Virginia Marriages, 1780-1970," [Database Online], FamilySearch, (https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/1408729 : 18 July 2022. County clerks, West Virginia.
[8] "Vital Research Records Search Selection," database and images, West Virginia Division of Culture and History (http://www.wvculture.org/vrr/ : accessed 13 October 2023), database entry for Joseph John Zebrook & Iris Wright, 11 Nov. 1946, and register image for “Application of Marriage License ” p21.
[9] Ancestry.com. 1950 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2022. National Archives at Washington, DC; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Year: 1950; Census Place: Plymouth, Mercer, West Virginia; Roll: 3085; Page: 23; Enumeration District: 28-62. Original data: Department of Commerce. Bureau of the Census. 1913-1/1/1972. Population Schedules for the 1950 Census, 1950 - 1950. Washington, DC: National Archives at Washington, DC.
[10] Beckley West Virginia City Directory, (R.L. Polk & Co, 1957), [p.364], Zebrook, Iris; digital image, "U.S., City Directories, 1822 - 1995," (http://www.ancestry.com : 15 Nov. 2023).
[11] WV Property Assessment portal. West Virginia Property Viewer. West Virginia Tax Division & WV GIS Technical Center. (https://www.mapwv.gov/parcel/). Accessed : 15 November 2023.
[12] ] Ancestry.com. Beckley Post-Herald (Beckley, West Virginia) [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007. Original data: Beckley Post-Herald. Beckley, West Virginia, United States Of America. Database created from microfilm copies of the newspaper. NewspaperArchive.com.
[13] “Joseph J. Zebrook Obituary,” The Morning News, Wilmington, DE, 4 March 1976, News. Digital Images, Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-morning-news/134975816/), citing original p. 45.
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