The influence of family on individual maturation is limited. Even the most highly informed and involved parents recognize that they can control only so much of their children’s trajectory. Environment (e.g., peers, schools, media, churches) and genes count as well. Biological factors are beyond the range of biography. We can reconstruct only familial and environmental conditions, but in postulating connections between these influences and Douglas’s development we should be as cautious as parents must be in predicting the future of their offspring.

The two women in Stephen’s family of origin were always allied in regard to him. His mother, Sarah “Sally” Douglass, was the formative influence in his upbringing. Her namesake daughter reinforced her authority. Stephen appears never to have had an independent relationship with his sister. Closely bound to her mother, who married her father-in-law within the same year of her wedding, daughter Sarah either spoke for Sally or communicated to Stephen through her husband, Julius Granger. Birth order researchers have long found that oldest children often assume parental roles with younger siblings, repeating maternal (or paternal) prescriptions. In later years, Sarah was Sally’s surrogate with Stephen, which only reaffirmed his mother’s continuing importance to him.