A Lesson from 1890

I've mentioned Curt Brown's Minnesota history column before, which runs in the Sunday Star Tribune.

Today's subject was a woman named Mary Weishar, who murdered her husband Frank in 1880 in the southern part of the state. She was convicted and served about nine years, though it sounds like he was a terrible person (at least he was a former mercenary soldier and a "notorious thief," and I am imagining reasons from their home life why she may have felt a need to do it).

But even so, I wouldn't be writing about the column except for one thing: The oldest child of Mary and Frank Weishar, also named Frank, was 10 years old when his father died and his mother went to prison. Despite that, as an adult

[he] became a leading citizen.

He founded the Todd County Tribune, farmed successfully, sired 13 kids, became active in Nonpartisan League politics, served the township and school board, and was an officer at the local creamery. When he died at 60 in 1930, 600 people attended his funeral.

That made me think about how people sometimes think biology is destiny. In this case, that would mean a kid whose father was a mercenary and a thief and whose mother was a murderer would necessarily turn out badly no matter what.

But despite the trauma that young Frank must have lived through, and his implied genes, he became a more exemplary person than many others. Who knows what happened in his life experience as a young person that may have helped him?

Human genetics are not simplistically determined, and when you include the spectrum of environmental variables and human interactions possible, the range of outcomes broadens further.

I know that many people would have written the child Frank off as a lost cause back in 1890, just as they write off all sorts of children today. He stands out as a case of how wrong that kind of thinking can be.
__

Brown's column about Mary Weishar and her son Frank is based on research carried out at the Minnesota History Center by Bruce Taber, their descendant.