FROM ROSEDALE, NOT SEDALIA.
Police Cast Doubt Upon Mrs.
Henderson's Story of Hardships
The police and the authorities at the Helping Hand institute have grave doubts of the story told by Mrs. Mable Henderson, who, with her blind baby, insists that she walked all the way from Sedalia, Mo., to this city, a distance of ninety miles, in three days. She says that she left there at sunup Monday morning , and arrived here at about 5:30 o'clock Wednesday evening, having had only 25 cents for expenses.
Mrs. Henderson was found by the police in the bottoms late Wednesday night, and sent to headquarters and then to the Helping Hand. She said she was not tired when she came in, refused food, saying she was not hungry, and neither her dress nor shoes were at all worn as they would have been from such a long tramp.
Early yesterday morning a man called Captain Weber at police headquarters and said: "I know the Mrs. Henderson with the blind baby mentioned in the papers this morning. She has lived with several others in a tent on the outskirts of Rosedale all winter. The men named in the paper as brothers-in-law, for whom she is now looking, lived there also. They all left recently and I don't know where they went."
The man refused to give his name. An official from the Helping Hand went to Rosedale and found the report to be true. He was also informed that Mrs. Henderson has two other children somewhere else. This she denied later. The investigation will be carried on further today.
"We have had at least twenty-five calls today offering to take both the woman and her baby," said Superintendent E. T. Bringham. "Several called in person and offered to assist in any manner desired. She was being cared for, however, and a specialist was secured for the baby, so all was being done what was necessary. The eye specialist, after a close examination, said that there was no hope for the baby ever regaining its sight, it having been blind from birth."
Mrs. Henderson said that she could get no place to work on account of her blind baby, the mother herself being blind in one eye. On this account it was said yesterday that an effort would be made to take the blind baby from its mother and place it in a blind institute, where it could be educated with others similarly afflicted. Left as it is, it would have little chance to make a living. The mother, when placing the child even in the nursery was mentioned, objected strenuously, and said that wherever the baby went she would go also.
"The woman is known to the Associated Charities," said Colonel Greenman, Humane agent, "and has been for some time. Agents from there are investigation the case now. Mrs. Henderson weighs only ninety pounds and her baby seventeen pounds. To reach here in three days she would have to walk at least thirty miles a day. That seems an impossible task for one so frail as she appears to be."
