The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-04-05
WOULD GO TO Her
Wendell Miller, Runaway, Loves
His Grandmother.
Lad a Confirmed Truant, DIR.
H. A. Dykes Declares.
SCHENCK LIKES BOY.
County Attorney Buys Him
KnickerbOcker Suit.
Eighteen Year-Old Step Ma No
SCHENCK LIKES BOY.
Eighteen Year-Old Step Ma No
Match for Him.

Dressed in a brand new knicker-
booker suit purchased for him by
County Attorney Schenck. Wendell
Miller, the 12-year- old runaway son of
the principal of the Lebanon city
schools, appeared in the Juvenile court
Monday to answer to the charge of
stealing a suit last week.
He was met there by his grand
mother, Mrs. u S. Groves. of Card
ner, Kan. to whom he said he was
going when arrested. The lads mother
died when he was four years old. He
now has stepmother whom his father
married six years ago when she was
but IS. The girl. says the grand
mother, through no fault but youth,
naturally did not know how to govern
the boy.
According to the boys story. it was
a suit of clothes which caused his
last runaway. He bought a suit and
had it charged, thinking. he says, to
earn the money to pay for 1t. as he
had a job offered him. But the store
seems to have charged it to his father,
who, when he heard of 1T. ordered the
lad out of the house. That was Sat
urday night. Wendell remained in
Lebanon until Sunday, when he
climbed into a freight car to go to
his grandmother and was arrested
here, ragged and dirty
The father has written Schenck to
put the boy in a reform school. He
does not want him and does not want
the grandm other to have him, for. he
says, she is too lenient and will de-
ceive her. DR.. H A. Dykes. president
of the state board of medical exam
writes that the boy is confirmed run
away and that the father has done all
in his power to control him.
She Is a Good Woman.
The grandmother is a sweet tenn
pered elderly woman with ample
means to care for the boy. The coun-
ty attorney wants her to have him and
has taken a great interest in the case,
giving as his reason that the father
seems unnatural
But Mr. Schenck has learned also
that the Miller boy is at present
ward of the Kansas City or Wyandotte
county juvenile court, taken up there
when the MiIlers lived in Kansas City:
Hence release from that court will
have to be secured before any action
can be taken here and such action was
deferred until today in order to get
word from Kansas City.
Wants to Live With Granny.
The boy is anxious to go with his
grandmother. He has been cheered
up wonderfully by the county attorney
since his confinement in the hospital
ward of the county jail. In the jail
he has probably saved the life of
woman prisoner almost as anxious for
death as Mrs. Evans who died Monday.
In the hospital ward is Matte Troy,
the huge negress. charged with pois-
oning David Marshall for insurance,
passing. him off as her own son, Will
lard Troy. She has been following the
demeanor of Mrs. Evans, according to
the Jail officers, and trying to starve
herself to death. She has often ex-
pressed a desire to kill herself. Wen
dell Miller found in the cell room a
dirk, which, If she had found, would
have served the purpose. The dirk is
of Mexican type and presumably was
left there by the band of Mexicans de-
tanned fortnight ago.