Yeah, absolutely, if you look at the man sitting on the prostitute's bed, and the first man who said to the woman who had the stillborn "So, you killed another one, huh?", it's the same man. In fact, when the man said that and yelled at the midwife to get out of the room, the man was drunk. Don, as you have also mentioned, told Rachel his Dad was a drunk that got kicked in the face by a horse.

So, yes, it's the same man, and it's Don's Father.

Oh! Oh! And the midwife, who shows up at the door of the woman who lost her baby? Remember when she said that God answered her prayers and brought her a baby, she then says, "Is your husband home?", inferring, I think, that the baby is his. After the midwife asks this, the childless woman rubs her forehead and takes the baby (Dick) from her.

Yeah, absolutely, if you look at the man sitting on the prostitute's bed, and the first man who said to the woman who had the stillborn "So, you killed another one, huh?", it's the same man. In fact, when the man said that and yelled at the midwife to get out of the room, the man was drunk. Don, as you have also mentioned, told Rachel his Dad was a drunk that got kicked in the face by a horse.

So, yes, it's the same man, and it's Dick's/Don's Father.

Oh! Oh! And the midwife, who shows up at the door of the woman who lost her baby? Remember when she said that God answered her prayers and brought her a baby, she then says, "Is your husband home?", inferring, I think, that the baby is his. After the midwife asks this, the childless woman rubs her forehead and takes the baby (Dick) from her.

I totally agree that it is Dick/Don's biological father. Little baby Dick was certainly not treated like a gift from heaven. I like knowing more about his childhood because it helps explain who he is. Lack of attachment as a baby and toddler turned Don into the narcissist he is.

I got the queer notion that Dick's father sought out the hooker to bear his child because his wive(s) at home could not carry a baby to term....?

People in the open thread were mixed. Some couldn't believe it was the same person. They thought the trick was younger than the mean drunk.

I'm wondering if it has to do with Don's feelings towards his parents. If the midwife is the source of his knowledge of these events, he would naturally make his vision of the mean drunk Whitman older and uglier than the vision he would have of his parents together. I guess what I am trying to say is that when he thinks of his parents together, his attitude towards Whitman softens, and he pictures them both as younger and more attractive....he romanticizes them I know when the scene switched to his face as he was visualizing his mother, he was kind of smilling.

His mother was a teenage prostitute and I think Don's (Dick's) father paid her eighty five cents. That's all he could come up with. No wonder his wife was losing babies. She was probably malnourished while her husband drank their money away and spent the remaining pennies on teenage prostitutes.

Not only is the man in the flashback the same man, we also know what happened after that.

The woman who accepted Dick from the midwife is named Abigail Whitman. She eventually gets pregnant by her husband and carries the baby to term. Before he is born, her husband dies unexpectedly. All we know is that he was kicked in the head by a mule. Dick is about 10 years old. Abigail remarries, and this is the man that is with the family when they meet 'Dick's' body at the train station. This man Dick called 'Uncle Mack.' The boy with them is his 'brother,' Adam.

Adam seeks Don out in New York, and when he is rejected by his half-brother, hangs himself.

Don's birth mother's name is Evangeline. That tidbit courtesy of (the often unreliable) IMDb.

I know that, and you know that - why did so many people not know that??

I have concluded that some viewers do not want to guess or figure things out. They want the story all laid out in a linear manner and are too impatient to wait for the story to develop . Sometimes I make time to respond,.....sometimes I don't.

I just feel priviledged to have discovered this series waaay back in Season 1.

Greytone, I'd have to agree with you. All last season Peggy's kid was hashed out. I was very surprised to come to the board this time and find people saying that Peggy kept her baby with her sister. Crazy making, it is.

I think the "john" was Dick's biological father also.

In the scene where Abigail's first baby died, Dick's father said something like "you lost another one". The mid wife snapped back at him "maybe you should stay off of her for a while" (or something similar). I think he took her advice, and went to the prostitute.

I though the man with the prostitute was much younger too and that he wasn't the same person as Don's father.