WIFE'S HEALTH BROKEN
AFTER OBTAINING HUSBAND'S
RELEASE FROM PRISON.
Money She Had Saved to Pay Her
Fare to Arizona Spent in the
Effort to Obtain Hus-
band's Pardon.
Lying bedfast, a sufferer of consumption due partly to her husband's incarceration in the Arkansas penitentiary, Mrs. John A. Lowrey, 1106 Cherry street, is living daily in the hope that some means may be provided whereby she can be taken to Arizona, where physicians say recovery is possible.
For six months Mrs. Lowrey pleaded with the authorities of Arkansas to release her husband, every day exhausting some new resource, and every day renewing with indomitable energy her fight for his pardon.
Finally, in sheer desperation, she sought the aid of kind friends in Kansas City. She told them of her plight, and said she must secure Lowrey's release or die an early death. Protesting that he was innocent of the charge upon which he was summarily convicted and quickly railroaded to prison, where he was sentenced to one year's servitude in Little Rock, after two juries had failed to agree, she won her first victory and went to Arkansas.
As only a loving mother and a devoted wife can plead, Mrs. Lowrey, with evidence tending to show that her husband was probably innocent of the crime of robbing a man in Fort Smith, eloquently and forcibly presented her case.
Returning to her two little children in Kansas City, weakened and much worse as the result of her long trip, Mrs. Lowrey daily awaited news from Arkansas. The days passed without cheering news and the weeks came and went.
One day a telegram came telling her that her fight was won and that on the following day, July 27, John Lowrey would be a free man.
Without funds or friends, Lowrey made his way back to Kansas City as quickly as possible. Then came the reunion. But with all its joys it had been saddened by the decline of the faithful wife's health.
Like his wife, broken in health as a result of his prison life and reduced to poverty, in debt, but not without friends, the husband started life anew.
But with his wife a victim of tuberculosis, unable to render him even the necessary assistance towards the care of the home and children, the burden of Lowrey was doubled.
Then followed the struggle for regained health. Mrs. Lowrey believed that her husband's return to her would give her new strength sufficient at least to overcome the disease which had taken hold of her.
The crisis came yesterday. The family physician told the sick woman that her only hope for life lies in a speedy change of climate, Arizona preferably.
Now a greater problem than that which faced him several months ago faces John Lowrey.
"My heroic wife secured my freedom from prison; how can I take her to Arizona?"
"I am doing all in my power to save my wife's life," said Lowrey last night. "I owe a debt of gratitude to my brave wife more sacred, if possible, than that of a mere husband. We believe that her life can be greatly prolonged by a change to a Western climate. I hope to obtain work on the railroad at Phoenix; I am corresponding with the officials there now and I look for a favorable reply in a day or two."
Mrs. Lowrey had saved $50 to pay her fare at the time her husband's trouble occurred. It was a fortune to her. She spent her money in her efforts to secure her husband's release from prison.
