Karen Wilson-Buterbaugh

Karen Wilson-Buterbaugh was one of seven Baby Scoop Era mothers audio-taped for "Everlasting," a multimedia sound and video installation by Ann Fessler. The stories are part of the women's oral history collection at the Schlesinger Library (Radcliffe). Karen's experience is also a chapter in Fessler's book, "The Girls Who Went Away, the Hidden History of Girls Who Surrendered Babies for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade."

Karen is co-author of "Adoption Healing, a path to recovery for mothers who lost children to adoption" (2003), author of "Setting the Record Straight," Moxie (2001), "Not By Choice," Eclectica (2002), and co-author of "In the Best Interests Of Whom?" Associated Content ( 2005).

She is director of the Baby Scoop Era Research Initiative, founder and former president of OriginsUSA and a founding member of Mothers Exploited By Adoption.

In 1966, Karen, a seventeen year old high school senior, was an indentured servant in two wage homes before becoming an "inmate" of the Florence Crittenton maternity home in Washington, D.C. She gave birth to her daughter on July 22. She and her newborn returned to the maternity home the same day and were separated on August 1, 1966. Her daughter was subsequently adopted. Thirty years later Karen found and reunited with Michelle Renee (aka Maria).

Karen has two raised daughters, is married and lives in Richmond, Virginia. Michelle Renee (Maria) was married and had a seven year old son when she passed away in August 2007 from Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS).