Caleb Mellon Swain

A backgammon set

Caleb Mellon Swain was the father of Wilbur and Eliza Swain with his wife Letitia. Although his family was originally apple farmers in Vermont, he himself was descended from wealth first accumulated by his ancestor, Professor Elihu Roosevelt Swain, who built a large estate in Galen, Vermont. He was good at backgammon and described as "so-so" at color photography. He did not work and attempted but failed to graduate college, about which he was humble.

He lived with his wife in a townhouse in Turtle Bay and was rarely separated from her for more than a couple days. After the birth of their children, he oversaw the refurbishing of the family house in Galen for them and the hiring of Dr. Stewart Mott as their primary caregiver. Once they were placed there, he and his wife only visited the children once a year on their birthdays, during which he would mostly talk "rather haltingly and listlessly" to his wife about recent events on the news. They would bring gifts from F.A.O. Schwarz designed to be educational for three year olds. Their annual birthday meeting would always take place in library, separated by large coffee table, while the parents sipped brandy and Caleb did all the talking. He was called "Bluth-luh" in twins' childish babble. Wilbur later surmised that the two wished their children with die, but neither openly expressed it to each other. On their fifteenth birthday, Letitia had a brief episode in which she expressed her hatred for her children and wonderment that should could have birthed them, while Caleb attempted to comfort her. She wished they would show "the merest flicker of humanness", which led to the twins revealing their intelligence. When they first did so, he was the parent who first interacted with them, stunned. Wilbur thought that his father "was sick with guilt" over allowing his intelligent children to be treated like idiots, recognizing that he'd now have love these monstrosities. He was angry with Dr. Mott, assuming that he was aware of the twins' abilities earlier.

Afterward, however, both parents were gratified that they were now justified in yelling at their children for misbehavior. They had both twins subjected to testing by researchers financed by the Swain Foundation, but were unable to bring themselves to personally observe it. Eventually, they hired Dr. Cordelia Swain Cordiner, a world renowned expert on psychological testing, who reported to them that the twins demonstrated "low normal" intelligence for their age, concluding that Eliza would never learn to read or write but called her "quite an amusing chatterbox". Wilbur was considered serious and easily distracted by his sister, but could likely perform well at a menial job. Dr. Cordiner suggested Wilbur be sent to a special school for children with similar conditions. After casually dismissing the twins' assertion that they would kill themselves unless they were allowed to retest together, saying she detected no suicidal tendencies in either of them, Letitia called her an "overdressed little sparrow fart". Dr. Cordiner then retested them together, "depersonalized... like a robot" in front of their parents, but when the twins wrapped themselves around each other to assure they'd get the correct answers, Dr. Cordiner fainted and their parents left the room, deciding to send Wilbur to a special private school on Cape Cod. The two accompanied Wilbur on the drive. Caleb died years later in automobile accident during Wilbur's first year at Harvard Medical School. Later in her life, his widow would talk about how she expected to be reunited with him in the afterlife.