Eugenics Record Office. BULLETIN No. 10A - DNA Patent Database ...

THE SCOPE OF THE COMMITTEE’S WORK. 51
Letter number four:
I am deeply interested in uncovering a family taint, which comes to me
as a thunderbolt from a clear sky and which bids fair to wreck my own life
in the possible permanent separation from my beloved son, a really brilliant
youth of 22 years, a senior in the electrical engineering class at Armour Institute,
to have graduated this past year, but who was compelled to leave school owing
to a nervous breakdown. * * *
Dr. —— made a diagnosis of dementia præcox in January last, but did
not tell me what the diagnosis was. * * *
I find there is a deep-seated family taint, which I want to know is or is
not responsible for the possible total annihilation of the only child I have—
one I love better than my own life. My mother was the oldest of ten children,
born near ——, New York. She is living today a healthy, normal woman at
74. She had five brothers, whose children were apparently normal with the
exception of one, whose daughter had a few epileptic seizures. ——, one of
the brothers, was insane for a short time, and confined in the —— Asylum,
but never had a recurrence of the attack. Of the girls in the family my mother
was normal. The next had epileptic fits and was advised to marry young. She
married a coarse, drunken farmer; had two normal daughters, so far as I know,
and one who was an inmate of the —— Insane Asylum, an epileptic until her
death at 18 or 20 years. Mary, the next married, had epileptic fits, and died
before middle age, had no children. —— married, had a son and daughter
normal, had epilepsy at 52 and lived but two years. The youngest was epileptic
from birth, probably insane, died at about 24. My mother’s mother was a normal
woman, lived to be 76, I believe, her father likewise, although I shall find that
out later; her grandmother lived to an extreme old age, and my mother tells
me now she believes she drank constantly. I am anxious to go farther back
than that, if I can find the way. My father was a high-strung, nervous man of
violent temper, and describes his mother as having been the same. My father
was a graduate of —— College, —— Theological, a minister, but his temper
made life a hell on earth for us. My sister is 36, unmarried, a fine musician,
pianist, but given to extreme sick headaches. My oldest brother was pronounced
insane from birth, was whipped and punished by my father, and finally received
a severe injury to the skull and brain in the coal mines at ——, Indiana, was
sent to the insane asylum at ——, where he ran away some months later.
As there were few asylums in Indiana at that time, they did not take the trouble
to go after him, and his life from that time on was a series of commitments to
workhouses, jails and penitentiaries, for petty offences, insane with criminal
tendencies. A year ago he died from enlargement of the spleen. * * * My
younger brother was well educated, a fine musician, married a young girl, had
two children, left taking a position with a circus, and we have not located him
for thirteen years. The boy, his son, 14 years, is described as being exception-
ally clever and interested, but played truant, lies and steals, and is at present
in the Boys’ Reform School, at ——, Indiana. The little girl, about 11, is
wayward, hard to control, and I should describe her as sex offending, if not
held with a firm hand. My boy’s father was a drunkard, an easy-going, good-
natured man, a steady drinker, had amassed a fortune of probably $30,000. The
whole family are queer—one brother a spirit medium, the other a spirit pho-
tographer. I know little of them. His father was 20 years older than myself,
died of Bright’s disease at 45. The boy is an only child, the father died when
he was 14 months old. * * * My son was a brilliant student, a genius in
fact, and would have made a name in the world. That he should be consigned
to oblivion behind the walls of an insane asylum for the remainder of his life
is a blow almost to great to bear. I want to find out whether he is punished
for the sins of his ancestors in this rotten family. He did not smoke, drink,
associate with lewd women, never had a venereal disease and did not practice
masturbation. He had typhoid and scarlet fever, his sight was defective, born
so. * * * If I could only assist you in establishing one little valuable item
that would help us to understand why these fearful things have to be! If you
would only help to educate the poor mothers and fathers of these neurotic children.