The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness. Henry Herbert Goddard

five hundred and eighty-one being still undetermined. (“Undetermined,” as here employed, often means not that we knew nothing about the person, but that we could not decide. They are people we can scarcely recognize as normal; frequently they are not what we could call good members of society. But it is very difficult to decide without more facts whether the condition that we find or that we learn about, as in the case of older generations, is or was really one of true feeble-mindedness.)

      In 1803, Martin Kallikak Jr., otherwise known as the “Old Horror,” married Rhoda Zabeth, a normal woman. (See Chart II.) They had ten children, of whom one died in infancy and another died at birth with the mother. Of those who lived, the oldest was Millard, the direct ancestor of our Deborah. He married Althea Haight, and they had fifteen children, of whom more later.

      The next born of Martin Jr. was Nathan, known in the community as “Daddy” (see Chart III),[2] who died at the advanced age of ninety-three. He was the father of six children. One of his sons was a criminal, a horse thief, who also stole a flock of sheep which the owner all unwittingly helped him to drive away. Three other children of “Daddy” married and themselves had children. These are all families about whose mentality it is difficult to decide. They are all peculiar, but more respectable than some other branches of this family. One is dead. The sixth, a daughter, is feeble-minded and sexually immoral. She married a man who was feeble-minded and alcoholic. Of her six children, two at least are feeble-minded. Whether her husband is the father of all of the children is very doubtful. Sexual immorality and alcoholism are prevalent in this family. One of the sons married a feeble-minded woman who came from feeble-minded stock. They had six children, all of whom were feeble-minded. One of these is of the Mongolian type, an interesting fact, as it shows that this particular form of arrest of development may occur in a defective family.