Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1889-02-15

Strange to say, Adelaide Nelson's
greatest sorrow was connected with
her mother, and the latter's love for
her beautiful daughter is the cause of
her present condition. She is hope
lessly deranged, and spends her time
talking of the one child for whom she
experienced the strongest affection,
and from whom she receive only a
dutiful regard and kindly attention.
Mrs. Bland has no other daughter,
though she was the mother of twelve
children by her late husband, Mr..
Bland.
Dr. b. said that the newspaper peo-
pie had tried for years TO learn the
particulars of Miss Nelson's early life,
and that Mrs Bland had guarded her
secret zealously until few months
ago, when the poor soul began to talk
OF the forbidden subject, and now con
fides her story over and over 10 her at.
tendant.
Daily she rehearses as Lady Mac
beth, and then describes her triumphs
when on the boards of the Leeds
theatre. She tells of her great beauty
which attracted the gallants in every
audience before which she appeared,
and atfectedly recounts the love of the
heart and became the father of her
child, the beautiful little girl who was
born in Leeds tenement house, and
whose earliest impressions were of the
stage. The mother, now a haggard,
prematurely aged woman, whose
once beautiful eyes stare vacantly on
those about her, told the doctor that
her daughters beauty was her fathers
dover, but that she inherited her love
of the stage from her. 1t was pas
sion with her as girl, and she ran
away from her home to be an actress.
Before she was twenty she was the
mother of the child who was afterward
known as Adelaide Nelson, hut whose
real name was Lizzie Ann Brown,
called so after her moi hers sister, who
was tai Dress in Leeds.
Mrs. Bland was the beauty of her
family and from the accounts she
gives of herself she was in her youth a
hayward girl. That she had talent is
undeniable, but the unfortunate cir
cumstance that took her from the
stage, before she had achieved any
kind of success. colored her whole life.
She says, in her aimless chats, that
after she left the stage, before Lizzie
was born, she lived at her sisters
and did needlework. She was not
penniless, for the young man who was
the father of the child was not indiffer
ent to her welfare, and he supported
her for sometime after the birth of the
little girl.
1t was genuine love affair, untaint-
ed with the slightest worldliness, which
the springhtly Lizzie Brown had with
the dark eyed foreigner, who was her
first and only love, and the offspring of
that most unfortunate connection was
the loving, generous and beautiful
woman, Adelaide Nelson. Strange to
relate, Mrs. Bland never speaks the
name of this lover of her youth now
that she is irresponsible for her actions.
She did not at any time after her
daughter left her TO go to London to
earn her own way in the world, and
her old acquaintance say that she had
been compelled by her daughter TO
take an oath that she would never re-
veal it or the fact of her illegitimacy.
"Lizzie Bland" as the little girl was
known 70 Guiseley people, was sup
posed to be the daughter of Mr.. Bland,
for the family had moved to the village
when she was four years old, and the
oldest child of Mr.. Bland was babe a
year old.
Until twelve years old Adelaide
did not know that she was not the
daughter OF the paper hanger whom
she called father, and she would have
been in ignorance of the fact yet lon
ger had not her mother unwisely
aroused her curiosity by forbidding
her to open drawer which she kept
locked, and seemed anxious about
when she was from home. To add 10
her husbands meagre income she did
sewing for the village families Who re-
quired help, and Lizzie was left in
charge of the home and the babies.
She was determined TO know the con-
tents of the drawer which her mother
guarded so sealously, and one day
finding the key which her parent had
forgotten, she opened it, The mother
in her rambling talks has often TO Id
what Adelaide discovered there. When
she returned home at the end Of the