Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 185, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1912 — GIRL IS A RECLUSE [ARTICLE]

GIRL IS A RECLUSE

Young Woman Jilted by Fiance Leads to Act, Spends Her Time Working on Farm, With Only Two Deer Hounds For Her Companions—AV tires Self as Man. Santa Monica, Cal. —Like a chapter from a novel is the present career of Miss Alma' Pitllnzer, a handsome young woman, who, wearing male attire, is living the life of a recluse, apart from all relatives and friends, in the beautiful Topanga canyon, eight miles north of this city. Several daya a friend of the young woman’s father, who was a visitor at one of the mountain resorts, recognized her and,urged her to return home, but without avail. Miss Pitllnzer declared she had left all her old life behind and did not wish to return. “I am living contentedly here, next to nature,” she said, “free from everyone, and I do not care to go back to the sham social life, where there is no real happiness. All I desire is to be let al6ne. Tell my people that I am happy and contented here in the mountains with my dogs aud ranch.” Eight years ago the young woman, who was then nineteen years old, and had just been graduated from high school, was living in a beautiful home at Walnut Hills, a fashionable suburb in Cincinnati.

She was one of the belles In the younger social set, and a short time after her graduation was betrothed to a young lawyer of that city, the marriage to take place the following year. Miss Pltllnzer was happyy at her contemplated wedding and took pride in exhibiting her engagement ring to her wide circle of friends. She had just begun to prepare her wedding gown when her fiance became Infatuated with her chum and eloped with her to Louisville, where they were married. When Miss Pltllnzer received the news of the wedding she fell 111. The shock caused her to have brain fever, and for three months she hovered between life and death. The young lawyer had called on Miss Pltllnzer almost every evening up to the day of his elopement, and she had idolized him as a man of the highest honor. After partly recovering from her

illness, Miss Pitllnzet.baffifrher parents good-by and left home, saying she was going on a trip to California to recuperate. She came to Santa Monica seven years ago, and after spending five weeks at the beach, purchased a small tanch in Topango canyon, three miles from the ocean shore, where she built a two-room cottage, being assisted in the work of construction by an elderly Mexican, who owns a ranch adjoining Miss Pitlinzer’s property. Miss Pitllnzer has hot worn woman’s clothing since she built the home. Except for the assistance given by her Mexican neighbors she has cleared and cultivated the entire ranch alone. She receives no callers, has no friends and lives as a hermit. It is only rarely that Miss Pitllnzer leaves the ranch. Her only companions are two large deer hounds, which are with her almost constantly. The animals act as a bodyguard, and whenever a curious person attempts to reach the cottage the onrush of the hounds soon causes the intruders to make a hasty retreat.