Mother's Sad Tale Wins Back Her Baby

Dec. 1919

Shade of King Solomon is Modern Judge's Guide

Woman Who Claimed Little "Love-o'-Mike" as Her Kidnaped Son Fails to Convince Court.

NEW YORK, N. Y. — The shade of King Solomon sat on the Children's Court bench while Judge Levy tried to decide who was the mother of little "Love-o'-Mike," claimed by two women — by Mrs. August Wentz as her kidnaped son and by Mrs. Lena Lisa as the baby she had planned to abandon to the mercies of Mrs. Elizabeth Seaman (Nellie Bly) for his own happiness and because she could not support her little family of three, herself, the baby and 3-year-old William on the $12 a week, which was all she could earn.

The infant was found in the Grand Central Terminal with a note pinned to its clothing, saying: "For the love of Mike, take care of this kid — I can't."

Mrs. Lisa, brokenly, and through her tears, told how she had schemed to have the infant left where Mrs. Seaman might notice and adopt it.

Weeps as She Finishes Story.

She narrated her trembling anticipation of news of it after the deed had been done, of her heartache when she read that it had arrived at Bellevue Hospital by way of a police station, and of her panic when Mrs. Wentz claimed it as her own.

Not a sound in the courtroom interrupted her story. Big policemen, unromantic agents of the detective bureau, officials of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, scores of others — and Mrs. Wentz — listened in a silence that was dramatic.

When she had concluded, her small frame shaken with sobs, the judge, with obvious emotion, ordered the baby returned to her.

Hugs Baby to Her Breast.

The little woman cried aloud with joy and hugged her baby to her breast. She had deliberated days and nights before deciding to let him go, she told the judge. A friend of her dead husband had taken him, promising to leave him "in Nellie Bly's arms."

Her husband's death last May had left her with a burden she often despaired of bearing, she said. She thought "Nellie Bly" would adopt him, or find a good home for him where he would have enough to eat, warm clothes, and be sent to school and allowed to grow up like other children.

She said she was frantic when she found her plans had gone wrong and could no longer repress her mother's instinct.

Mrs. Wentz finally admitted she was convinced it was not her baby, and added: "My two days of happiness in the thought that I had at last found my own little Arthur are like a fairy tale to me."

Saved by a Cat

1900

Sir Edward Osborne, Lord Mayor of London in his time, bought an ancient house in Yorkshire, and sent his wife and children thither. There were two boys among them. The Pall Mall Gazette tells of a tragedy which occurred at the house soon after.

One of the boys, the elder, dutifully obeyed when summoned to his lessons one morning in a turret, but the younger, loitering, "happened to light upon a cat which he delighted to play with, and crept after her to catch her under a table in the room which was covered over with a carpet hanging down to the floor."

Thus he disappeared, and the next instant a terrible rush of wind overthrew the turret, in which his brother and the tutor sat at work, crushing them to death.

Supposing that both her sons were there, the mother fell into convulsions. One of the maids, running in a distracted manner from room to room, caught sight of the small boy peeping from under the table, with the cat in his arms, snatched him up and bore him in ecstasy to his mother, he only crying:

"I pray thee, I pray thee, do not whip me!" — Youth's Companion.

Sad Death — Emma Osborn, Leon, Iowa — Clothing Caught on Fire

Leon, Iowa area (no date given)

The school-house two miles east of Leon, where Miss Alice Dilsaver is teacher, was the scene, Friday morning last, of one of those startling accidents, so chilling and saddening to those who happen to be eye witnesses. Emma, the ten year old daughter of Mrs. Lydia Osborn, whose husband, Joel Osborn, it will be remembered by many, died very suddenly on the 29th of August last, went to school as usual, arriving at the school house at about half past eight o'clock. No other children were in the room when Emma got there and Miss Dilsaver was at her boarding place close by, not having yet [gone] to open school, though two or three [—] were playing near the house. Her clothes caught fire either by her standing against the stove or opening the stove door to stir the fire (Miss Dilsaver thinks the latter,) and the first any one knew of it was when she came out in the sight of those boys, she being badly frightened, the flames reaching upward and around her, presenting at once a pitiable and horrid spectacle. Orin Wilson, a scholar in the same school began to do all he could to subdue the flames, burning his hands considerably in the attempt, and though working like a hero, he made poor headway until Mr. High Manchester and his sister Lydia, came along the road, joined in the effort to save the child. They tore what clothing was not burned off of her and thus stopped the fire, but alas, too late. The fire had already done deadly work and it became at once apparent that the life of the unfortunate little one was doomed. However, she talked quite cheerfully when rescued from the flames. The Manchesters wrapped her up in a comforter and took her speedily to her mother and family whose feelings on beholding her condition may be imagined but not described.

Dr. Van Werden was called and he did all that could be done to relieve the awful agonies of the little sufferer but to no avail. She talked hopefully to Dr. who says she was quite heroic for one of her years. Her sufferings were terrible until midday, about which time the vital powers appeared to fail quite rapidly and from then onward it was apparent that the last ray of life would soon flicker; and that she was not conscious of pain. She had the closest attention of a goodly number of sympathising friends throughout the day, but with all they could do they were powerless to assuage one pang or to prolong her young life by even one breath. She rested quietly the last six hours and ceased to breathe at seven o'clock in the evening, ten and one-half hours after she was burned.

The funeral was set for Sunday last at Welcome school house, where a large concourse of people assembled to show their sympathy and to listen to a well timed and beautiful funeral service by Elder S. A. Garber, on the death of Emma and also that of her father from the text of Scripture: "What is your life." At the close of the services the people filed around in a solemn procession to look for the last time on the calm features of the loved and lost one, who in her serene calmness, accompanied by her own beautiful doll, which had been placed beside her by a tender hand, creating as it were a delusion; for it did not seem so much like death, only we all knew it was death.

Thus passed swiftly away as a meteor one of earth's beautiful and bright gems. Had little Emma stayed to witness the coming of the 6th day of another spring time, or the daisies bloom again, or another return of the song birds, the music of the rills, the awakening to life of the leaves and flowers, all the emblems of childhood, she would have reached the [*1 - tenth mile] stone on the precarious and uncertain road of this earth life.

Who would dispute a mother's trust that her child dwells [*2 - in a land] where the bright and beautiful [*3 - ones reside]?

X.

Notes:

[*1] A piece missing, and faded letters. But it looks like her birthday, not stated anywhere else, must have been the 6th day after the first day of spring. It looks like it must say "reached the tenth mile stone" but the article already says she was 10. Maybe they meant she was in her 10th year or virtually 10.

[*2] Letters between 'e' of 'dwells' and 'and' of 'land' are missing.

[*3] Letters between 'beautiful' and 'ide?' are missing.

The other brackets cover a small piece missing and filled in. The phrase "two or three — were playing near" has room for "kids," if that was a word they used.

There is an Emma C. Osborn to be found on the internet from the area. But she was 20 years old when she died.

'Frisco Has Child Linguist Prodigy

1910

SAN FRANCISCO. — Leland Stanford University is to acquire a child prodigy of whom quite as great things are expected as of Harvard's boy wonder, William James Sidis. In this case the prodigy is a girl, Winifred Sackville Stoner, better known to her familiars as Cherie. Her mother is a daughter of the late Lord Sackville West, ambassador from England in one of the Cleveland administrations, and her father is Col. J. B. Stoner of the Marine hospital service.

She is now aged eight years, and as a linguist is in a class by herself. Her knack for poetry enabled her to print a book of 52 pages called "Jingles" when she was five. At the age of four she was proficient enough in Esperanto to receive from the founder of that composite language a medal for proficiency. She had heard this tongue from infancy, as her mother is a recognized authority in it.

In addition she speaks and thinks in English, French, Spanish and Latin, and she can speak well enough for conversational purposes Japanese, Russian, German, Polish and Italian. While accumulating this varied vocabulary she has gone along at a precocious rate in other studies and has had her full share of outdoor romping. Dolls are still her companions when the weather keeps her in.

"Her advancement is simply due to the way she was educated," her mother said. "I began when she was three weeks of age by placing beautiful pictures on the walls of her nursery. From the first she was accustomed to the best literature. We did not recite silly nursery rhymes to her, but only the best. Instead of giving her the stories usually told to children I read to her from the Bible and from mythology. She had Latin from the cradle.

"At three months I read to Cherie from the Latin writers and recited for her from such poems as 'Crossing the Bar.' At eight months she began to talk. At the age of one year, she could scan from Virgil and she read before she was two. I was teaching her the language all the time.

"At three she could operate a typewriter. By its use she learned to spell and also to memorize what she was writing. It was by copying poems and articles on the machine that she learned much that she knows. When she was at this age Puck accepted and printed a little poem of hers. Afterward she became a regular contributor to St. Nicholas. She did not learn to write with the pen until she was four. We have always made play of her work. Games similar to 'Authors' were devised for history and mythology."

Note: The article at Wikipedia says she was born in 1902 and died in 1983. She had a "Jr." on her name, as her mother was also Winifred Sackville Stoner.

40 Year-Old Wife Of Boy Husband Will Fight Divorce

1914

Des Moines, Iowa, Jan. 14. — Mrs. Maude Kinney-Patrick-Bates, through attorneys has signified her intention of contesting the application of Charles Bates, her 16-year-old husband, to have the marriage to his 40-year-old wife set aside.

The case was to have been heard yesterday by Judge Hugh Brennan of the district court. Until yesterday Mrs. Patrick has remained silent and it was presumed young Bates would secure the annulment by default.

Attorneys C. C. Dowell and John McLennan have entered their appearances in the case and Bates was denied the chance to secure the annulment without a fight.

The case attracted considerable attention some time ago when Bates alleged he had been lured into marrying a woman twice his age through continued protestations of love on her part. They went to Chicago and were married under assumed names; he as Charles Buford and she as Frances Kinney. Since their return to Des Moines they have not lived together.

With the entrance of the two attorneys into the case it is probable Mrs. Patrick will file her answer to the charges made by her boy husband in a short time.

Young Child Gets Pig Eye, Corneal Transplant

1914

Operation in Baltimore Hospital the First of Its Kind in United f States.

Baltimore, Md. — What is believed to be the first operation of its kind in this country was performed at a local hospital when the cornea of a pig's eye was grafted on the sightless eye of a three-months-old boy.

It was said that previous operations, in which rabbits' eyes had been used, were unsuccessful, but that experiments with pigs' eyes had led scientists to believe that they were more adaptable. Two cases are said to be on record where the grafting of human cornea gave sight to totally blind eyes.

In the operation the pig was chloroformed, the eyeball taken out and the cornea cut from it. An extraordinarily fine needle and fine silk were used in sewing the cornea in place. The eye will remain bandaged for about a week.


How to Wed Happily

1914

Princeton, New Jersey — "To assure happy marriages all applicants for marriage licenses should file declarations of intentions a month before the license is granted," said Prof. R. M. Ross, in a lecture on social economics.

Child Carried Off by An Eagle

1901

Child Rescued Half a Mile From Where the Bird Flew With Its Prey

Denver, Col., Jan. 31. — Tony Giovanni, a 2-year-old child, was seized and carried off by a gray eagle while playing in the yard of his home in a Denver suburb. The child's screams brought the father and two other men to the door of their home in time to see the bird and child disappear over the bluff of the Platte river. The men gave chase and saw the eagle alight on a small island covered with undergrowth, half a mile from the child's home. When the men arrived at the island the bird attempted to rise again with the boy, but his clothing caught in a bush and the eagle, seeing the men close at hand with clubs, dropped his prize and flew away.

—Davenport Daily Republican, Davenport, IA, Feb. 1, 1901, p. 3.

A Lady's Long Trance: A Spasm, A Comatose State

1878

A Lady's Long Trance

The Des Moines (Iowa) Register of a recent issue, says: Yesterday evening there stopped at the Given House Mr. and Mrs. Shadle, of Guthrie county, accompanied by some attendants. They are escorting to Mount Pleasant Mrs. Shadle, who has been in an almost continual trance ever since last June.

Some time last March, without any premonitory symptoms, the lady became insane, wild at first, and finally violent. She was visiting a sister near her own residence. Soon after her arrival there she began to talk strangely, and a few days later was raving with insanity, and at times very violent. On the 12th of June Mrs. Shadle had a spasm, from which she passed off into a comatose state, which continued without intermission until October 1, when she awakened and conversed, although incoherently. The next day she again fell asleep and has not since been awake.

She is fed by forcing her mouth open and placing the food inside. Her respiration is regular, but a little more frequent than that of most people of her age, which is twenty-nine. She has one child, a boy of four years. The first evidence of wakefulness she has exhibited since the 2nd of October was the day before yesterday, when she was carried from her home to a vehicle to be transferred to the cars. The little boy climbed into the wagon and placing his arms about his mother's neck, kissed her. Tears immediately rolled from the closed eyes, but they remained closed, and there was no other sign of waking. She is to be taken to the asylum for the insane at Fort Madison.


Ingenious Pickpockets

Lucy H. Hooper says that the Parisian pickpocket has invented a special mode of theft. The thief enters the omnibus, chooses his seat beside some well-dressed and apparently affluent person, and remains motionless and apparently absorbed in his reflections. But between his finger and thumb he holds a very small grain of shot attached to a black silk thread of extreme fineness and strength. When his next neighbor opens his or her pocket-book to pay the fare, the thief adroitly throws his grain of shot into the pocket-book, retailing the end of the silk thread in his hand. The pocket-book is closed and replaced in the owner's pocket, grain of shot and all. The thief profits by some extraordinary jolt of the vehicle to fall against his neighbor, and in that moment he draws in the silk thread and gains possession of his prize.

2-Year-Old Child Declared Intoxicated, Also Parents

1909

Baby Drunk; Also Parents

CHICAGO — The 2-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Doyle was declared to be intoxicated when taken to the City Relief Hospital by the police. Doyle and his wife were arrested at Clark and Lake streets, Chicago. The woman, intoxicated, had fallen asleep on the sidewalk and her husband was on the curbing in the same condition, the child was clinging to his neck. The parents were locked up at the Harrison street station, and after the child was cared for at the hospital it was placed in the care of the police matron. Doyle gave his age as 26, but could not tell where he lived.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Oct. 9, 1909, p. 1.


Drinks Iodine for Cider

LOS ANGELES, Cal., Oct. 7 — The filing of a death notice disclosed a peculiar case of accidental poisoning. Mrs. Katherine F. Lynch of New York, a guest at a hotel, went to the pantry of her apartment last Sunday to take a drink of cider and in the darkness drank iodine. She died 24 hours later.


Had 4 Wives; 35 Children

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — A. Milton Musser, 70 years old, assistant historian of the Mormon Church and one of the early pioneers of Utah, died, following an operation for intestinal trouble. He had four wives and was the father of thirty-five children.

The Dying Wife (poetry)

1878

The Dying Wife.

Lay the gem upon my bosom,
Let me feel her warm breath,
For a strong chill o'er me passes,
And I know it is death.
I would gaze upon the treasure—
Scarcely given ere I go—
Feel her rosy, dimpled fingers
Wander o'er my cheek of snow,

I am passing through the waters,
But a blessed shore appears;
Kneel beside me, husband, dearest,
Let me kiss away thy tears;
Wrestle with thy grief, my husband,
Strive from midnight unto day;
It may leave an angel's blessing
When it vanishes away.

Lay the gem upon my bosom,
'Tis not long she can be there,
See! how to my heart she nestles,
'Tis the pearl I love to wear.
If in after years beside thee,
Sits another in my chair,
Though her voice be sweeter music,
And her face than mine more fair;

If a cherub call thee "Father,"
Far more beautiful than this,
Love thy first-born, oh! my husband!
Turn not from the motherless;
Tell her something of her mother—
You may call her by my name!
Shield her from the winds of sorrow!
If she errs, oh! gently blame.

Lead her sometimes, where I am sleeping
I will answer if she calls,
And my breath will stir her ringlets,
When my voice in blessing falls;
Then her soft black eyes will brighten,
And shall wonder whence it came;
In her heart when years pass o'er her
She will find her mother's name.

It is said that every mortal
Walks between two angels here;
One records the ill, but blots it,
If before the midnight drear
Man repenteth — if uncancelled,
Then the right-hand angel weepeth,
Bowing low with veiled eyes.

I will be her right hand angel,
Sealing up the good for Heaven;
Striving that the midnight watches
Find no misdeeds unforgiven.
You will not forget me, husband,
When I am sleeping 'neath the sod;
Oh, love the jewel to us given
As I love thee — next to God!