Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 186, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1920 — LAW STEPS IN TO SAVE BRIDE OF ELEVEN YEARS [ARTICLE]

LAW STEPS IN TO SAVE BRIDE OF ELEVEN YEARS

Man of Forty-Five Is Accused of Taking Girl Wife by Fraud in Tennessee. Will the brutal “sale” of little Florence Lambert, eleven, to be the wife of Ben B. Zumbro, forty-five, forever harden the girl’s heart against love and frighten her from marriage? Charity workers at Nashville, Tenn., confess they do not know. Her mother doesn’t care, she says, and the minister-blacksmith who “married” the two thinks all the agitation “the meddling of people down on us poor folks.” The case was brought to the Attention of Litton Hickman, judge of the county court, who, after conference with Attorney General G. B. Kirkpatrick, characterized the affair as one of the most revolting and pitiful he had ever known. v He said he would use every means to prosecute those who had anything to do with forcing the child Into “marriage.” Annulment proceedings will be started. As for poor little “Mrs. Zumbro,” she says she likes it better at the United Charities home because her “husband” fussed with her. Florence, who wears her dresses no lower than her knees and is of childlike face and figure, was “married" by fraud. She was a ward of an Industrial home and was given leave to attend the funeral of her sister. While on this leave her mother, Mrs. Lulu Lambert, signed a marriage license asserting that the girl was sixteen and the “groom” thirty-five. Zumbro, it is said, promised money to the mother. Rev. W. S. Yarbrough, who- says he is a Baptist minister, but “not working at it,” “married” the pair in the presence of 20 people. He believed the license, he says, and didn’t notice that the child had all the appearances of extreme youth and wore short dresses. Zumbro can’t be located. "