Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1909-07-06
COUPLE REUNITED
AFTER 20 YEARS

FITZGERALD, Ca, July 2.-Bubbling
over with a case of genuine love, mel
lowed by twenty-five years experience of
hardship, yearning disappointment and
longing for a lost first love, Mr. and Mrs.
]. G. t. Thomas came to this city with
a story that reads like impossible nc
ton, being a loving verihcation of the
truth that fact is stranger than fiction.
Twenty-Five years ago these two were
married After two and one-hah years
of married life they lost each other, and
for % years 4 months and a day they
neither saw nor heard OF the other until
two weeks ago they met face to face, re-
courted and married again on Thursday,
and today they are the happiest bride and
groom man ever looked upon. Their
story is almost without a parallel in the
annals of newspaper fact or fiction, and
every word Is vouched by each of the
couple, who had no hesitancy in laying
bare to the correspondent the unique
history of their lives.
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas were both Geor-
CLANS by birth, he having been reared In
Clinch and she in Dooly county. He was
q and she 10 when they were made man
and wife. For nearly three years they
lived together, drifting from place to
place until Jacksonville was made their
home. Then one day the usual petty
quarrel came up, the young child-wife
left her husband in a At of rage, going
to a farm a few miles from the city,
where she expected to stay for FEW
weeks until he sent for her to come back
and forgive him. No such message ever
came, and one day she went back to
Jacksonville to reJoin him. But he had
gone. Gone in search of her, whose
Whereabouts had been kept in ignor-
Nance.
She came back to Georgia, and search
ed the country from Atlanta to Havana,
but nowhere could she find anyone who
could give her a trace of her lost hus-
band. Later a Cuban named Frank Perry
wanted to marry her, and she finally got
a divorce and married him. For fifteen
years they lived together happily, some
of the time in Florida, some in Cuba ana
some in Georgia.
SECOND HUSBAND DIES.
Five years ago Mr.. Perry died in Jack
sonville and she came back to Georgia
and started cigar factory at Wray, not
far from this city. She prospered and re-
Gently opened another factory at SyIves-
ter, Ga. A little over two weeks ago she
went to Tampa to purchase some tobacco
for her factories. She went to one of
the big factories just as the men were
leaving. and asked the Waterman where
she could find the manager.
forgotten how to speak the italian Ian
gUage she turned to a man she had
heard speaking English to ask him to
interpret for her. She looked him full
in the face and her heart leaped into her
throat.
What is your manner" she asked.
Thomas" he replied.
George Thomas?'
George Thomas is my NAME" said he.
do you know me?" she asked.
mo, I do not"
Pointing to a scar on her neck. caused
from a sore in her early life, she said,
do you know that SCARF
His face lighted up. and laying his hand
on a panel close by, he said. DO you
recognize that hand?
Two of his fingers were partly cut off
when a boy, and with these tokens OF
recognition, they stepped aside and took
a seat on the factory steps where he was
a special policeman and night Waterman.
And there they sat the night out, telling
of all they had done and where they
had been during the years of separation.
HE REMARKED ALSO.
George Thomas, after a vain search for
his wife through Florida and Georgia for
FIVE years, settled down in Jacksonville.
Here he decided to anarry again and for
ten years lived with a woman he later
divorced and who is now supposed to be
dead. Then he wandered down to Tam
pa, where he had been for three years as
city police and then night Waterman at
a big cigar factory.
For two days and two nights this
strangely and happily reunited couple
sat day and night telling of their expert
ences throughout the % years and so
there was nothing to hinder recount
ship Of two weeks and happy marriage
at Sylvester last Thursday.
Mrs. Thomas is disposlng of her cigar
factories at Wray and Sylvester and, with
her husband, will return to Tampa to
live.