Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 306, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 December 1912 — WIFE AND MOTHER DESERTS FAMILY [ARTICLE]

WIFE AND MOTHER DESERTS FAMILY

Mrs. Wilbur Criswell Tucked Little Ones in Bed and Then Left, Husband Says With Man. Mrs. Wilbur Criswell, mother of four young children, left the. home of her husband and the little ones Monday evening and the Husband and his brothers declare that she went away with a married man in his buggy and presumably accompanied him to Chicago. Mr. Criswell and his wife have dwelled together in happy married life, he states, until a few weekVago when he discovered that she was receiving attention from this man. She then left home and came to Rensselaer, where she workeed for some time at a. hotel. He tried to talk with her one evening and ran after her, catching hold of her arm and when each pulled she fell and he fell over her and the screams of the woman several neighbors to rush into the street. That was several weeks ago. Soon afterward she returned to him and again they were very happy, so he says, and he believes that she was going to remain with the family where she was so much needed. In a touching note headed "The Neighborhood of Sorrow,” Mr. Criswell relates that his wife and himself had been in town Monday and went home at about 2 o’clock, everything seemed all right and no trouble was looked for as she seemed perfectly contented. At about 7 o’clock or possibly a little before she took the two younger children to bed, tucked them in and then removed he l ' shoes, slipped down stairs and out of the house. Some fifteen minutes later Wilbur went upstairs to see why his wife had not come down an 4 she was not there. The children told about her taking off her shoes and going so quietly away. A search was at once started but it was dark and no trace of her., could be found The next mbptiing Mr. Criswell and brothers fotmd what they regarded as a certain dew. Horse hoofs had left marks In the road where the horse

was turned around at the crossroads south of the house The tracks were recognized. They were pony tracks. The horse had been driven east after leaving the corner. Two neighbors stated that they had seen Mrs. Criswell talking with the owner of the pony in a Rensselaer store Monday. Investigation proved that the man was away from home. He returned Thursday, so the Criswells say, but Mrs. Criswell did not come back and Christmas was a sorrowful day for the distracted husband and the four children. *