The Sunday herald and weekly national intelligencer., 1891-10-18
TWO DISTINCT LIVES.
Now She Is Mary yennum, Then Mary
Kof.

Now She Is Mary Vennum, Then Mary
Koff.
Lovers of the wonderful have rejoiced to
find real fesh-and-blood heroine, whose
mental phenomena have proved absolutely
unfathomable, says Beloit (Kan.) correspon-
dent of the st. Louis Globe Democrat.
Nearly all her life has been spent in
prairie cabin home, and her parents are COM
mon everyday people of the middle class.
Mr.. and Mrs. Vennum, the parents of the
girl, Mary Vennum, the subject of this sketch,
are utterly at loss to explain the marvellous
actions of their daughter. In her little more
than fourteen years she has lived two lives
two separate, individual existences, neither
related in the least to the other.
Living near the Vennums, when Mary was
about ID years Of age, was family named
Koff. Mary was subject to cataleptic fits, and
after coming out of one of them she became
to all intents and purposes Mary Koff. Her
past life was entirely forgotten, and she talked,
acted, and in every way demeaned herself as
another person.
The Mary Koff whom she became and re-
mained for over year, had died Gas was after
ward learned) nearly seven years before, at
about the Vennum girls age.
Yet where her life had been broken by death
Mary Vennum took it up and continued its
interrupted duties. Her parents first noticed
1t when, after the fit, she began to talk of
things in the KoH residence, which neither
| they nor herself, so far as they knew, had ever
entered.
Day after day she pleaded to be taken home
| and finally, as last experiment, they, to sat-
| isfy her, took her to the Koff home. The
| Koffs had recognized In her features a slight
resemblance TO their dead child, but they
| were thunderstruck when she, upon stepping
| inside the door, at once treated all the mem
bers Of the household as old acquaintances
She understood their peculiarlties as If she
had been reared there and remained with her
| new-found parents perfectly content, recog-
| niZing the furniture, pictures, and various
| parts of the house as II she had always been
| familiar with them She went at once to the
| bureau IN Wlch the dead girl had kept her be-
longings and Immediately recognized every
object and called 1t her own.
They say, too, that the awakening was not
less remarkable. One day she failed to wake
in the morning. One day passed, the night
and half the following day, and still she slept
| Along in the afternoon she gave shiYel
and a cry Of pain, and sat up In bed wide
awake, staring about her. She could recog
nize nothing and would not speak to the Koffs
She begged for her mother, and upon being
taken home was her old self again, knowing
nothing Of her twelve months experience
counting it all as a dreamless sleep. Ye
during the time she was as ight-hearted an6
natural as any girl of her age.
Her story got abroad, and many students O
physical wonders called upon her to see tn,
strange child. Among others, DIR. Hodgson
who is secretary OF the English Physical So
ciety, had his attention called TO the girl.
He went step by step over Mary Vennum'
whole life, verifying every incident as givel
above and securing much additional informa
ton bearing upon her remarkable double life
The occultists make much of the experience
and claim that they can see in 1t case o
transference OF thought.