Rachel's mother was Maria Frazier. Her father was Robert Warden Carson. She had one older sister named Marian and had one younger brother named Robert McLean Carson. She went to college at Chatman University, Pennsylvania college for women, she graduated from Magna Cum Laude Marine Biological laboratory studied zoology and genetics at John Hopkins in the fall of 1929 worked with rats, and prosophila, writing radio copy for a series of weekly educational broadcasts.