When Mortals Play God

John Erickson spent more than 30 years in journalism at newspapers in North Dakota, Montana, Illinois and Ohio. At the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News, he led the coverage on three stories that were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize, including a series that won the Pulitzer for National Reporting in 1998. In 2019, he was inducted into the Ohio Associated Press Media Editors’ Hall of Fame. John grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in journalism. He lives in Dayton, Ohio, with his wife and their two children. He is dedicating the book to his mother who, God willing, will be 100 years old in November 2021.

• Table Of ContentsCover PageDedicationTable Of ContentsForewordAuthor’s NoteFeebleminded DefinitionPrologue Chapter One: Brainerd ChapterTwo: MaryChapterThree: RoseChapterFour: ‘Feebleminded’ChapterFive: Orphans Chapter Six: Transition Chapter Seven: Ernie Chapter Eight: Michael PhotosChapterNine: Robert ChapterTen: Questions ChapterEleven: SurvivorsAcknowledgements DatesBibliographyAbout The Author

Journalist Erickson debuts with a heart-wrenching study of his grandmother’s forced sterilization under Minnesota state law in 1926. Passed between 1907 and 1937 in 32 states and upheld by the Supreme Court in Buck v. Bell (1927), eugenic sterilization laws were based on farm husbandry practices and designed to “prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.” Erickson’s grandmother, Rose DeChaine, was twice divorced and had two children by the time she was 20, and gave birth to her third child eight months after entering a mental institution; she became subject to sterilization because she was an alleged prostitute classified as “feebleminded.” Drawing on family and state records, Erickson interweaves profiles of Rose’s family members with analysis of the medical and sociological theories behind the eugenics movement.... [T]his is a well-researched and intimate account of a dark chapter in American history.