Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1899 — A MOTHER’S HOPE. [ARTICLE]

A MOTHER’S HOPE.

Still Thinks of Finding Her Boy, Who ° Was Stolen Fifteen Years Ago. The finding of Gerald Lapiner, the kidnaped Chicago boy, has kindled anew the fires of hope in the breast of Mrs. Lizzie Dickinson of Hhughton, Mich. Mrs. Dickinson believes that she may yet find her boy, now grown, to manhood, who was stolen fifteen years ago. In 1884 the Dickinsons were living at Florence, Wis., where Mr. Dickinson w r ns a mining engineer and superintendent of the mines. One day the boy, Willie, was stolen. He was then 6 years old. The theory was advanced first that the boy had been kidnaped in a spirit of revenge by some of the miners who were identified with a strike. This theory was abandoned later, a search having been made in the meantime of all the abandoned shafts in the vicinity in which the boy might have fallen. Almost a year passed before the aid of a detective was called, and then a thorough and organized search for the little fellow was made. The little fortune owned by the parents was spent in the hunt for the boy by the Pinkerton detectives. Clews were chased from one end to the other of the United States. Several times"it was believed that success was at hand. One clew, which was undoubtedly a true one, led the detectives into the South and into a settlement of negroes, where the boy had been secreted for several months. Unmistakable traces of the Dickinson boy were found among these negroes, his playmates having learned the same prayers he recited when at home and also having gained a true description of his home in Wisconsin. But the boy could not be found. In the years that have elapsed the mother has never wholly abandoned hope. The husband is dead, and the broken-hearted mother has traveled all over the United States. She has seen 153 boys about whom there was mystery, pointing to an abduction, and has been the agency of restoring thirteen stolen boys to their parents. If living Willie is now 21 years old.