Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 83, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 April 1912 — HAPPENINGS IN THE CITIES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HAPPENINGS IN THE CITIES

Irate Father Fails to Thwart Cupid 1

Pittsburg by the first train and arranged to get married here, but, owing to toe fact that Miss Merckle i> a Catholic .and Roecker a Protestant, they could not find a priest who would marry them without a letter from Miss Merckles’ pastor. •The elder Merckles, missing his daughter, learned she had left for Wheeling. “No train for two hours," was the discouraging words of the station agent at Cameron when the excited Merckles asked him how soon he could get a train. Engaging an automobile he covered toe distance between Cameron and Wheeling, 74 miles, in record time. Arriving there he found that the couple had left only an hour before for Pittsburg. In his effort to head them off, the father drove the distance from Pittsburg, 66 miles. He traced the elopers to a hotel and leaped that they were to leave for New York at 9:40. He went to Union station and found they had purchased tickets and had engaged staterooms on toe New York night express, Merckles took up his position at the gates. He was standing there looking at the New York night express, when suddenly Roecker and his intended bride shot past him. Before he could recover himself the gates were slammed. Finally he got out to the platform—but too latte—toe train carrying the elopers was moving' out of the station.

PITTSBURG. —An irate father’s sensational chase of nearly 150 miles in an automobile In his efforts to intercept his eloping daughter and her fiance, cpjne to an abrupt end at 9:40 o’clock the other night when the big iron gates at Union station Were banged in the face of C. Bllby Merckles, a retired coal operator of Cameron, W. Va. Merckles* daughter, Miss Anna Regine Merckles, aged twentyone, a recent graduate of an eastern school, and Calvin A. Roecker, aged twenty-seven, a bond salesman of New York, city, eluded the aged Merckles and boarded the New York Night Express just about to start Miss Merckles met Roecker at one of the series of smart receptions that followed the New York automobile show last year. Roecker asked Mr. Merckles for his daughter’s hand, but this aroused the father’s indignation. Not to be discouraged, young Roecker and Miss Merckles carried on a correspondence between New York and Cameron. Young Roecker a few days ago arrived in Wheeling, and there met Miss Merckles. They came to