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Theodore John
KACZYNSKI |
Baby Ted Kaczynski
(Kaczynski family photo)
Ted Kaczynski, about 5 months old, with his father, Ted "Turk"
Kaczynski,
at their home on South Marshfield Avenue in Chicago in October 1942.
At the tail end of the Great Depression, a fiery young Wanda Dombek
met
sausage maker Turk Kaczynski at the Settlement House, Back of the
Yards'
answer to Jane Addams' Hull House. Here, immigrants gathered to
better
themselves, to learn English and to become socially active. Both
blue-collar intellectuals, Turk and Wanda's dates consisted of long,
cold
walks through the city and heated political debate. Wanda always was
more
liberal than Turk, more outspoken, which both exasperated and
compelled
him.
After a three-year courtship, they could afford to get married.
Their
first child, Ted, followed soon after, on May 22, 1942.
Baby Ted Kaczynski held by parents
(Kaczynski family photo)
Baby Ted Kaczynski with his parents, Turk and Wanda Kaczynski, at
their
Southwest Side home, circa 1943.
Joy in the arrival of their first child was cut short when, 9 months
later, Ted was rushed to the Children's Pediatric Clinic at the
University
of Chicago with a serious case of hives. As Wanda tells the story
today,
at age 91, it haunts her. Ted's infant experience there, she
believes,
contributed to a mental illness, began pattern of isolation and a
contradictory fear of abandonment--though Ted would later dismiss
the
story as an elaborate fiction.
"In those days, the way they treated children was barbaric," she
says.
"They didn't let the parents stay with the child." The hospital kept
baby
Teddy for more than a week, letting Wanda see him only twice, for an
hour
each visit.
"He was abandoned, as far as he knew," she remembers. "It just broke
my
heart when I would visit because he was lifeless, limp."
When Teddy finally was discharged, Wanda says, "I came to pick him
up and
he was like a little rag doll. He didn't look at me ... he didn't
respond
in any way. It frightened the hell out of me. It was really a very
painful
episode in our lives."
Ted Kaczynski in costume
(Kaczynski family photo)
Ted Kaczynski in costume as a kindergartener, circa 1947.
The Evergreen Park of the early 1950s had another draw for Ted and
younger
brother Dave's father, Turk, a sausage maker who cherished the
outdoors.
It was a sense of wildness embodied by the sprawling field across the
street from the new home. The sun sparkled off the meadow's bits of
iron
pyrite--fool's good--which the neighbor children collected and coveted.
The Kaczynskis picnicked in the Palos Hills Forest Preserve, and swam
in
Lake Michigan on visits to Michigan's Warren Dunes State Park. The
boys
hiked with their father and huddled over campfires as Turk told
stories
about what life was like for early Native Americans.
Ted Kaczynski, 1948
(Kaczynski family photo)
Ted Kaczynski in 1948, about age 6.
Ted Kaczynski (center)
(Kaczynski family photo)
Ted Kaczynski watches over his new baby brother, Dave, with their
father, Turk, in 1949.
Ted Kaczynski (right) with little brother David and their mother
Wanda Kaczynski
(Kaczynski family photo)
Wanda Kaczynski and her two young sons in 1949.
Kaczynski family photo
(Kaczynski family photo)
Ted Kaczynski in an undated photo as a boy in Chicago.
Ted Kaczynski with his pet parakeet and little brother David
(Kaczynski family photo)
Ted, age 9, and David Kaczynski, 2, with the family's pet parakeet
in
1952, the year the family moved to south suburban Evergreen Park. This
favorite family photo sits in a hallway, on a table near Wanda
Kaczynski's
her bedroom door. The photo was in the room when Gary Wright, Ted's
12th
bombing target, first met Wanda almost a decade ago. It helps Gary to
think of Ted as this little boy in the photo, not as a killer he would
later become.
The Kaczynski brothers and neighbors
(AP photo)
Ted Kaczynski (center) and brother Dave (left) play with neighbor
children
in Evergreen Park in June 1954. Ted was 12 years old and already
showing
academic promise. In 5th grade, a school counselor gave him an IQ test;
Ted scored a 167, well into genius territory.
Kaczynski family
(Kaczynski family photo)
Wanda, Ted and Dave Kaczynski are shown during a family outing at
Palos
Hills Forest Preserve in the southwest suburbs in this undated photo.
The
boys' love of nature came from their father, who took them hiking
often.
"He always wanted to be a forest ranger, but he had responsibilities,"
Dave said of his father.
Ted Kaczynski with brother and mother
(Kaczynski family photo)
Wanda Kaczynski and her sons, location and date unknown.
Kaczynskis at Starved Rock
(Kaczynski family photo)
Turk Kaczynski, Ted (left) and Dave are shown during a family trip
to
Starved Rock State Park in Illinois in this undated photo. Turk passed
his
love of nature down to his sons. "Nature carried a feeling of
closeness
that I felt with my father, mother and brother when we went
vacationing,"
Dave Kaczynski said.
The Kaczynski family
(Kaczynski family photo)
The Kaczynski family in the early 1950s in front of their new home
on
South Lawndale Avenue in Evergreen Park. At the time, there was a
prairie
across the street from the home. "There was a sense of wildness there,"
Dave Kaczynski recalls.
Ted and David Kaczynski
(Kaczynski family photo)
Ted (top) and Dave Kaczynski during a family outing at an Illinois
forest
preserve in the early 1950s. Later in life, Dave came to believe his
brother's affinity for the woods was different from his own. "I got
the
sense that it was an escape from people," he said, "from cultural and
social stresses that he didn't want to cope with."
Ted Kaczynski with little brother, David
(Kaczynski family photo)
Dave and Ted Kaczynski on a family camping trip in 1956, when Ted
was
about 14 years old.
The year before, the older brother already had started to struggle
with
traditional morality. In a journal entry, Ted recounted seeing a girl
on
the street when he was 13: "Something about her appearance antagonized
me,
and, from habit, I began looking for a way to justify hating her,
within
my logical system. But then I stopped and said to myself, 'This is
getting
ridiculous. I'll just chuck all this silly morality business and hate
anybody I please.' Since then I have never had any interest in or
respect
for morality, ethics or anything of the sort."
At age 15 he would earn a mathematics scholarship to Harvard
University.
Ted and David Kaczynski in 1958
(Kaczynski family photo)
Ted and Dave Kaczynski outside their Evergreen Park home in 1958.
Ted was
graduating early from Evergreen Park Community High School and would
go on
to Harvard and then the University of Michigan. Dave also would
graduate
early from high school, and attend Columbia University at age 16.
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