Talk:Frederick Creighton Wellman

Possible grandson of Wellman's, notable for being one of the first reported cases of autism (need help verifying/would this be appropriate to add?)

I recently took a look at "Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact," by Leo Kanner (considered to be a pioneering work in the field of autism research) as well as Kanner's follow-up from 1971. Curious about what else became of the children from the study, I dug around for information elsewhere. Case 2 from Kanner's study was a boy initially identified as "Fredrick W.," also identified in the 1970 follow-up as "Creighton" (the name he went by in adulthood) and "Wikky" (a nickname of his). Clues that "Fredrick W." might be a grandson and namesake of Fredrick Creighton Wellman (via his son Frederick Lovejoy Wellman) are present in descriptions of Frederick W.'s family members by Kanner:

"The boy is an only child. The father, aged 44, a university graduate and a plant pathologist, has traveled a great deal in connection with his work. He is a patient, even-tempered man, mildly obsessive; as a child he did not talk 'until late' and was delicate, supposedly 'from lack of vitamin in diet allowed in Africa.'"

"[Frederick's] paternal grandfather organized medical missions in Africa, studied tropical medicine in England, became an authority on manganese mining in Brazil, was at the same time dean of a medical school and director of an art museum in an American city, and is listed in Who's Who under two different names. He disappeared in 1911, his whereabouts remaining obscure for twenty-five years. It was then learned that he had gone to Europe and married a novelist, without obtaining a divorce from his last wife. The family considers him 'a very strong character of the genius type, who wanted to do as much good as he could.'"

"The father is the second of five children. The oldest is a well-known newspaper man and author of a best-seller. A married sister, 'high-strung and quite precocious,' is a singer. Next comes a brother who writes for adventure magazines. The youngest, a painter, writer, and radio commentator..."

I can't verify this myself, so I'm wondering if anyone else familiar with the Wellmans could help me determine if "Frederick W." is Frederick Creighton Wellman's grandson and namesake, as I suspect. That being said, Frederick W. was slightly anonymized for a reason, so is it even a good idea to verify this and/or add it to the Family section of this article? I'd like others to weigh in on that, too.

Zoe Kirk (talk) 23:12, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

That's interesting. The biography of the family sounds suspiciously like the family of Frederick Creighton Wellman. However, I agree that maybe the anonymity of the patient should be respected. Quetzal1964 (talk) 20:13, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

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