The children knew what to do when the time came. They ran—some out of fear, others out of custom—to the field beyond the white, two-story house with the tin roof and the wide front porch and the outhouse nearby and Dr. Parris’s car parked between the house and the barn. Briggs Parris had come quickly that day because he knew that subsequent children come quickly, and this was Mrs. Guice’s 15th baby.
Born on January 17, 1942, Gerald Ray Guice was the 15th child of Mary Geneva Morgan Guice and John Franklin Guice. Like his previous siblings, he was born at home delivered by the same doctor. Upon his birth, Dr. Parris knew immediately that something was different about this 15th baby. “Miss Geneva,” he said, “something’s different about this baby. Maybe you should put him in an institution.”
