TRYING TO FIND HIS MOTHER.
Newsboy Can't Remember Her, but
Hunt Crosses Continent.
William Henry Wilcox, a 19-year-old wanderer who sometimes sells newspapers and at other times runs elevators for a living, is looking for his mother, whom he does not remember. He said last night he was stolen from her in Boston when he was but 7 months old by a woman named Mrs. Jenny Baker who gave him to her sister, Mrs. Hattie Gorden Howen.
Now he wants to find his mother whose name was Lillian Wilcox. He knows nothing of his father. When he was 8 years old he was so abused by the husband of the Howen woman that he got into the hands of the Massachusetts state board of charities, and was "farmed out" for ten years of his life.
The boy in the last year has been across the continent from Boston through New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans, or out to the Pacific, and has been in Kansas City for twelve days. He says he wants to settle down here and get work running an elevator.
With utter frankness, he said that in every city that he visited he told his story to the newspapers, in hope that the publicity would attract the attention of his mother.
He said he had a good job in New Orleans and was well treated.
"Why did you leave?" was the question put to him.
"Oh, I got restless," he said. "I guess you know how it would be if you wanted to find your mother and couldn't," he added wistfully.
