The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-MindednessGoddard, Henry Herbert
Science
The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness
Goddard, Henry Herbert
Heredity, Human; Mental retardation; People with mental disabilities
The sixth child of Martin Jr., known as “Old Moll” (Chart VI), was
feeble-minded, alcoholic, epileptic, and sexually immoral. She had three
illegitimate children who were sent to the almshouse, and from there bound
out to neighboring farmers. One of these turned out normal, one was
feeble-minded, and the other undetermined. Neither of the two older ones
had any children. The third child, a daughter, was tubercular, but nothing
is known of her descendants, except that there were several children and
grandchildren.
The seventh child of Martin Jr. was a daughter, Sylvia (Chart VII), who
seemed to be a normal woman. She was taken very young by a good family who
brought her up carefully. She later married a normal man. Although we have
marked her normal, she was always peculiar. All her children and
grandchildren were either normal or are undetermined.
The youngest child of Martin Jr. who lived to grow up was Amy Jones, also
normal. (Chart VIII.) She, too, was taken into a good family and married a
normal man, and lived to be very old. Two of Amy’s children died in
infancy. Of two others, one was normal and one feeble-minded. This latter
married a normal man and had one feeble-minded and immoral daughter; five
other children are undetermined.
We now return to Martin Jr.’s oldest son, Millard (Chart IX), to take up
the story of his descendants, of whom our girl Deborah is one.
Millard married Althea Haight about 1830. They had fifteen children born
in the following years: 1830, 1831, 1832, 1834, 1836, 1838, 1840, 1841,
1843, 1845, 1847, 1849, 1851, 1854, 1856. The mother died in 1857. This
mother, Althea Haight, was feeble-minded. That she came from a
feeble-minded family is evidenced by the fact that she had at least one
feeble-minded brother, while of her mother it was said that the “devil
himself could not live with her.” The feeble-minded brother had six
children, of whom three are known to have been feeble-minded. He had seven
grandchildren who were feeble-minded, and no less than nine feeble-minded
great-grandchildren. (These are not shown on the chart.)
The oldest child of Millard and Althea was a daughter who grew up a
feeble-minded and immoral woman. She had several husbands, but only one of
her children lived to be old enough to marry. This one, a daughter of
illegitimate birth, married a man of good family who was a confirmed
alcoholic. Their children are all undetermined, except one who was normal.
The second child of Millard, a daughter, was a bad character. We know of
one illegitimate and feeble-minded son who married a feeble-minded and
immoral girl. They had four children, but all died in infancy. This wife
was also the mother of an illegitimate son, who was feeble-minded and
sexually immoral.
The third child of Millard was Justin (Chart IX, section E), the
grandfather of our Deborah. His family we shall discuss later.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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