The date was chosen because March 21st, 3/21, represents Trisomy 21, the medical term for Down syndrome. Alice was born the day before. Down syndrome has a number of commonalities among those who carry the extra gene on the 21st chromosome, but all are unique in their abilities and needs.

Langdon Down had his name associated with the condition as he was one of the first doctors to study the condition. He called his patients "Mongoloid idiots" which gives you a picture of his time as well as how words become pejorative.

An idiot used to mean a working class person. Down found that if you treated people with T21 like people they lived much longer, meaningful lives. Through eugenics, this was lost and the de facto standard of care was institutionalization.

These institutions came to be horrid and the people there were treated badly. In Massachusetts they were called "state schools" but from an acquaintance who was a doctor at one and worked to shut it down, they were horrible and underfunded.

Alice grew up in a time when more work was done to have people with Down syndrome integrated into the community, but also during her life we're seeing the funding and supports dwindle.