THEIR DREAM WILL
END AT POOR FARM.
RUNAWAY COUPLE COULD NOT
FACE A CRAFTY WORLD.
Mrs. W. T. Mead, Bride of the 66-77-
Year-Old Couple, Applies to
County Court for Permis-
sion to Return.
A bride of a month, with wrinkles of age and care marking her face, tottered towards the bench of the county court yesterday at Independence. It was Mrs. W. T. Mead, who married W. T. Mead, librarian at the county farm, June 6. He was 66 and she 77, and, although the marriage had been forbidden by the county court, both thought they were old enough to know and both left the farm to carry out the twilight dream of their lives.
The county court does not allow inmates of the home to wed, and when the application came for a permit to marry the county court calmly refused the request, and the two old people, not to be thwarted, went to Kansas City and married. Each had saved a little money. He as librarian, and she sewing at the farm. Both had been at the farm a number of years and frequently she would go to the library to get a book and talk with William.
Yesterday the bride tottered towards the county judges and in a faltering voice made a plea for herself and husband that they be allowed to go back to the farm together. They had applied to the superintendent of the farm, but he had refused to allow them to come without the sanction of the court. Judge J. M. Patterson raised his eyes to the ceiling as the application was being made and the story told. Judge George J. Dodd assumed a thoughtful mood and Judge C. E. Moss whittled a pencil.
They would be taken back to the farm, but not as man and wife. They must be separated, not judicially, but constructively. The court could not tolerate a union of inmates at the farm, for it might become epidemic. The rule could not be broken if they married and then wanted to return to the shelter provided by the county.
Mrs. Mead told in faltering tones how she and her husband had purchased a small restaurant, as they had planned before leaving the farm. They paid all of their money over and signed the papers. When they returned to take possession the next day two wagon loads of goods had been hauled away and, in the pitiful helplessness of old age, they realized that they had been swindled.
"I won't live long, judge," she said. "I am destitute now, so is my husband. Please let us go back, won't you? Please let us finish our lives there. Both of us love the farm and we will not be a bother."
The county court was obdurate. "You may go back, but not as man and wife," said the presiding judge. "It's against the rules."
It was decided to allow them to go back, but as individuals and not as married people, and this order was placed on the book which gave Cupid a double jolt.
The order of the court changed the wrinkles on the face of Mrs. Mead to smiles, and she went away joyously to her home, 306 West Fifth street, Kansas City, to tell her husband about the order of the court, and last night they returned to the scene where they learned to love each other, these two old people, happy, but separated, to live the last chapter.
