SEEKS CHILD SHE
GAVE TO STRANGERS.
MRS. FLORENCE SCOTT ASKS
POLICE TO HELP.
Ten years Ago She Placed 7-Year-Old
Susie in Care of R. L. Martin
and Wife, and Hasn't
Seen Her Since.
The death of her husband ten years ago, followed by adverse circumstances, caused Mrs. Florence Scott, then living with her four children at 1823 1/2 Main street, to dispose of one of her children, Susie, who was then just 7 years old. Through Mrs. Mollie Lee, who was police matron at that time, the little girl was given to Mr. and Mrs. R. L. Martin, said to be from Maryville, Mo.
Mrs. Scott called yesterday on Mrs. Lizzie Burns, one of the present matrons. The mother love is strong in Mrs. Scott and she wants to see her daughter, who now should be 17 years old. She told Mrs. Burns of the struggle after her husband's death and how Mrs. Lee had advised her to dispose of one of the children.
"After I had agreed," said Mrs. Scott, "Mr. and Mrs. Martin were sent to see me. They took Susie away, and from that day to this I have never heard one word of her. No papers were signed by me, therefore she could not have been adopted."
Through her tears Mrs. Scott said yesterday that she did not intend to take Susie away from her present home. All she wanted was to see her child, saying she did not wish her daughter to be taken clear out of her life.
Soon after her little girl was taken from her Mrs. Scott wrote to Maryville, Mo., to "R. L. Martin," but her letter was returned unopened. Then she appealed to the chief of police, but said no effort was made to locate her offspring.
Some years later Mrs. Scott said she went to Mrs. Patti Moore who was police matron at that time. Mrs. Moore, she said, looked up the records for her and found that the child had been given to the Martins of Maryville, Mo., but further than that nothing was of record. Mrs. Moore gave Mrs. Scott a picture of her little girl which had been received from the Martins. The edges of the portrait, Mrs. Scott says, were torn off to destroy the name of the photographer or any information it might bear.
Still imbued with an insatiate desire to see her child, Mrs. Scott two years ago took the matter up with F. E. McCrary, then a juvenile court officer but now Humane agent. McCrary's investigations, she said, developed the same facts -- that the child had been given to the Martins of Maryville, Mo. She said, however, that she was told that McCrary had written and found that R. L. Martin was a restaurant keeper of Maryville. Taking heart anew she wrote a letter to the restaurant man but, like all the others, it was returned unopened. Mrs. Scott's desire to see her child at times becomes so great that it is almost a mania, causing her to lose sleep and worry greatly.
"It seems funny to me that the police cannot tell me where my little girl has gone," she said. "It looks very much like they have been holding back information from me for all these ten miserable years. The martins have no adoption papers and never have had. It is not my intention to try to take Susie from them. She is my baby, my own flesh and blood, and I only want to see her; to talk with her and see how she is getting on.
"All of my other children are now grown up and away from me, but I know where they are."
At present Mrs. Scott is living at the home of Mrs. J. Barker, 1303 Wabash avenue. This time she will make an extraordinary effort to find her now almost grown daughter.
