POLITEO'S EX-WIFE
IN SPOTLIGHT AGAIN.
THIS TIME SHE HAS BEEN EN-
JOINED FROM SELLING LIQUOR.
Eva Springsteen Fair Caught in Of-
ficial Round-Up at Bartles-
ville, Ok. -- Her
Varied Career.
Eva Springsteen Fair, the woman who bewitched a Croatian priest of Kansas City, Kas., into marriage eight years ago, has again burst into the light of notoriety at Bartlesville, Ok., her present field. Among nine other holders of licenses she has been enjoined from selling liquor. She is now said to be the wife of a Bartlesville liveryman. Of the twenty-eight places where intoxicants are sold, twenty-two are listed for injunction.
Mrs. Fair, as she prefers to be known professionally, has left a wake of witchery wherever she has gone, but she served her piece de resistance when she inveigled Father Antony Politeo away from his priestly vows and his parish of simple Croatians to St. Joseph, where they were married November 19, 1901. Upon their return to Kansas City she is said to have left him at the Union depot and refused to live with him. Politeo, be it said, was straightway unfrocked and his wife obtained a divorce at Independence in the early part of 1907 on the grounds of abandonment and neglect. Soon after her divorce she went to Bartesville, where she has been living since.
MADE GOOD START, ANYHOW.
Many have been the vicissitudes of Mrs. Fair. As Eva Springsteen she was born in Manhattan, Kas., but later was taken by her parents to Atchison. There she was educated and received a diploma from the local high school. With other girl graduates, clad in commencement white, she sat demurely and listened with kindling ambition to the baccalaureate sermon, wherein the homilist shouted to them in his climax that "beyond the Alps lies Italy." Her intentions were no doubt good at first, but, figuratively, she tired of the irksome Alpine climb and strayed down into into the pleasant field of France an on to its gay capital, tarrying not far from the Moulin Rouge. After graduation she edited for a while the society page of an Atchison paper. She also waited behind a depot lunch counter in that city. On coming to Kansas city, she took the name of Mrs. Eva M. Fair. Here it was that she met Politeo on the street. She dropped her handkerchief. The priest picked it up and returned it to her with a bow. Smiles were exchanged and there was a stroll.
POLITEO'S ROMANTIC CAREER.
Politeo was a man of undoubted intellectual attainments. He gave inconsistent accounts of himself, however, and among other distinctions claimed acquaintance with Gabriel d'Annunzio and Sienkiewicz, the author of "Quo Vadis." By reason of his heterodox opinions, political and religious, he was banished from Austria and the church and went to Italy. Later he became reconciled with the church and his political heresies were pardoned by Emperor Francis Joseph. Then he was sent to America to take religious charge of his people in the coal fields of Pennsylvania. After that he came West and organized the Croatians who worked in packingtown into a parish. Thus as shepherd of his trustful flock he administered to their spiritual wants until the fair charmer tripped his path. Then began his undoing.
SHE MARRIED FOR MONEY.
Mrs. Fair and her lawyer cheerfully admitted that she had married the priest for his money. She claimed, however, she did not know of his churchly office until after their marriage at St. Joseph and that he wanted her to live with him as his housekeeper. This, she said, she refused to do. Five years later she got a divorce.
In the meantime she formed a sort of partnership with one George W. Robinson and together they kept a rooming house at 312-314 East Thirteenth street, this city. Soon she claims her partner became delinquent. She sued for dissolution of the partnership and the payment of what money was due her. At any rate Robinson, who was said to be a grain broker, dropped out of her life, and she kept pretty well out of the limelight until she began suit for divorce from Politeo.
