William and Sally Smith were a rich couple with four children living in the upscale part of the upscale,suburban New York county of Westchester.One day,they have a tragedy in the family when their five-year-old daughter; Elizabeth,is struck and killed by a speeding car. Devastated,the Smiths decide to adopt another child;a sort of replacement for the daughter that they lost.They go to a local orphanage and when they find this little girl being forced into slave-labor,the Smiths are repulsed by this and decide to take this poor,hapless waif into their home and though this little girl,who they learn was named Carol Anne by her birth-parents,started out as a replacement for their recently deceased daughter Carol Anne earns her own place in the family,not as Elizabeth's replacement, but as the seventh member of the family and Bill and Sally's fifth child.