The San Francisco call., 1910-06-18
COUPLE OUTWITS
PARENTS OF BILL
st. John Whitney and Miss Hem
rietta Alton Win in Game
of Love
Speed to City in Swift Motor
From San Mate0 and
Plight Vows

With a two starred pennant at the
masthead an automobile sailed up the
peninsula with the speed of a comet
yesterday morning. paused at the coun-
ty clerks Office and then fastened to
ST. Mary's cathedral, where its occu-
pants, st. John Whitney and Miss Hen
rietta Alton of San Mateo, were mar
ried. A few moments later they had
boarded the fast train for Del Monte.
Faster than the telegraph had they
come, for during their race from San
Mateo the brides mother had been wir-
ing to the officials of four counties to
intercept the eloping pair. When her
frantic appeal arrived Mr.. and Mrs.
Whitney were enjoying their wedding
breakfast in a Pullman car.
The young couple had used the Gus
tomary diplomatic methods of persua-
sion, but the parental viewpoint suf-
fered no change from its adamantine
negative. Then came the decision to
defy all opposition.
Young Whitney is an athlete and as
dashing in his love making as on the
football field. He had known Miss
Alton for only two months. but it had
required only two minutes for him to
determine to win the girl who is now
his wife. He has been out of college
two years. He was graduated with the
class of '08 at the. University of Cali
fornia and soon thereafter assumed the
management of the Leslie salt works
near San Mateo, owned by his father,
A L. Whitney. At college the young
man had been a member of the Zeta Psi
fraternity the Skull and Keys, Theta
Nu Epsilon and other societies.
He attended faithfully to business.
but he was pretty deeply impressed
with the idea that there was some
thing else in, life besides filching salt
from the sea.
Last April at a small party in San
Mateo he met Miss Alton and then he
was positive he was right. Residing
at the fashionable Peninsula hotel in
San Mateo, he was enabled to call fire.
quently upon Miss Alton, who lived not
far away. She had been educated at
Notre Dame college in San Jose and
had perfected her education at the
Catholic seminary at Menlo. A very
beautiful girl and highly accomplished,
she had many suitors, but her parents
were opposed to her marriage at this
time
Her father, Thomas Alton, who is
president of the San Francisco brew
ing company, limited had told Whit
ney and his daughter in answer to
their pleadings that they were not to
marry. The young man had looked out
over the veranda in silence, while the
girls eyes closed to hold in check a
tear. That was only last week. The
two held conference. They concluded
that they had exhausted the arts Of
diplomacy and should now quietly ar
range for their marriage.
Whitney opened hostilities against
the paternal dictum last Saturday night.
He gathered half a dozen of his friends
and they sped in automobiles to San
Jose There they celebrated the ap-
preaching nuptials with a dinner in one
of the fashionable grills Of the Garden
City. There was a glorious farewell to
the joys of bachelor life. At the con-
clusion OF the banquet the pledge to
secrecy was quaffed.
In the meantime Miss Alton had made
such arrangements as girl would
make unnoticed for the occasion. But
with al the skill of the two they had
not succeeded in allaying the suspicious
of Mrs. Alton. She watched her daugh-
ter with some misgivings, fearing that
her silence was but the surface indi-
cation of deeper plot. She was soon
to learn that her apprehension had been
well grounded.
While San Mateo was preparing to
breakfast Monday, young Whitney
rented the fastest automobile in the
San Mateo garage. Then he chugged
stood ready, her bridal veil tied tight
to hold her hat In she jumped, and
in another minute the great machine
was tearing through the countryside
for the license Office.
The breakfast bell sounded at the
Alton home, but it failed to summon
Miss Henrietta. Then Mrs. Alton guessd
the truth. She dispatched her son, Les
lie, TO find his sister and he soon re-
turned with the news that Whitney
had rented a car in the early morning.
The rest was only too clear to Mrs.
Alton. She wired to the clerks of Santa
Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco and
Alameda counties. In the meantime
her husband had left in pursuit. John
Altony the uncle of the girl had been
notified in San Francisco.
But they were all too late. The we'd
ding party had wehded its way to st.
Mary's Beside young Whitney and his
bride, it consisted of Mrs. Whitney, the
groom's mother, and Leslie Whitney, a
brother. Father Prendergast performed
the ceremony shortly before 10 o'clock
in the morning.
1t was not until they reached Del
Monte last night that they informed
the brides parents of the marriage.
Their friends say that a parental bless
ing will be theirs upon their return.