Arizona republican., 1908-11-23
SHE'S EITHER "QUEER"
 OR UNCONVENTIONAL"
NEIGHBORS SAY THE FORMER, MRS. EMMA LATHAM,
 THE LATTER
The Curious Case of a Wealthy New Resident Who Has Attracted the Attention of the Probate Court.

No two insanity cases are quite alike {. but that of Mrs. Emma Lapham w-lich E was heard in probate court on Satur- ! day was widely different from any {. within the experience of the court | Mrs Lapham is a wealthy and eccen- :. tric Chicago woman who came to the . valley last September, stopping first at Mesa She bought the Spainhour . ranch near there and had put her son . on it. She bought some stock and ! made other investments in that neigh !. borhood.
 : Then she came to Phoenix, stopping : for a time at the Hotel Adams, where . she had had some trouble and after . that at the New Dennis. Nearly every one who saw her was attracted by her . eccentricity which was manifested es- . pecially in the ease with which she formed acquaintances and held one- . sided conversations with them in the . course of which she divulged her past . and her intentions regarding the fu- . ture.
 : She wore at that time the most cost . ly jewelry and lots of it; she fairly . gleamed with pearls and glittered with diamonds Last week she bought the . Charles w. Wartman property on Westmoreland street and moved into , it. There was not a stick of furniture lin it, but she lost no time in having a telephone installed. She also hired a corps of carpenters to put a new floor , in the attic When she left the house Is .l, ..1I tls.1 1frrlat ftrr ed on she Invariably locked herself out and had to call on the neighbors to as sist her in burglarizing her own resi- dence so that she could go to bed. In this unusual way Mrs. Lapham es- tablished an acquaintace through out the neighborhood and the more her
 new neighbors saw of her and talked with her the more queer they thought her.
 Il They understood her to say last Fri
 day night that she expected to bring two of her children who were insane, to live with her and she trusted that they would not make things unpleasant for the neighborhOod. WestmOreland is quiet part of town and tends to- ward eXclusiveness. The intentions of | Mrs. Lapham therefore created some 1 excitement and when the following morning she invaded the house of a neighbor ana catechised the cook about the wages she was receiving, her age. the length of her residence in this part of the country and her impressions of lit. it was thought that something
 should be done. especially when she be- Ilieved that her own house was shared with her by witches who persisted in locking the doors after her.
 Accordingly her sanity was question | ed in probate court and warrant was issued. Deputy Sheriff Adams went
 after her and found her sitting on
 box eating off of a table formed by
 another box and talking to two young
 men who when questioned said that they knew nothing about her. but that
 she struck them as being queer.
 At first she declined to come to court
 but on second thought she said she
 would rather like the ride, and came. She is a striking looking woman ap- iIlsrently of forty though she admitted fifty. Her black hair which is luxuri- ant, was streaked with gray. Her eyes large and black set wide apart had humorous gleam when she Was ushered into court.
 She proceeded at once to the business in hand. She uttered no protest, but said that this kind of a reception of newcomers was not calculated to build up the country very fast. She first told all about herself She was mar
 ried but had been separated from her
 husband for two years. He was four lyears her senior and she said, you know a man of that age finds difficulty in procuring employment" She said she would have left him sooner if he had been wealthy, or had been capa-
 be of taking care of himself, but he
 was not. When at last the situation
 became unbearable she left him after lentering into an arrangement to send
 him S35 a month; that was not much lshe said for she had been keeping him
 for years In addition to this stipulat- led sum, she had paid a doctor bill for thim since she came to Phoenix and had sent him other money.
 ! Her sister she said was very wealthy land her parents in their life time had
 been in comfortable circumstances.
 What she had, had been inherited from
 them She had three children In the
 least, one of them, a daughter. in a Isanitarium in Illinois, and it was her mention of that fact she thought that had given rise to the rumor that her children were insane.
 She said she was the owner of valuable residence in Chicago which
 she had rented to Dr. White an emi-
 nent physician and in this connection
 she showed letter from a Chicago
 real estate firm through which she was
 going to have her furniture removed from this residence to Phoenix. There was another letter from | trust company offering to take her as i signment of several mortgages she
 held on Chicago property, aggregating about s12,0OO.
 Mrs. Lapham was rapid fire talker and her language was as correct as what is known as the written tongue" Of herself she said that while she had been thought queer, she was only un- conventional and that her mistake on coming to Phoenix was in assuming that the inhabitants liked strangers to be friendly.
 When the matter of witches in her house was mentioned, she burst into