Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1912-01-09
Amazing Story in Real Life Reveal
ed, but it eliminates in the Death
Of the Young Girl.
SHE ExcELs AS STUDENT
Identity is Kept Secret While She
is in School, and Only Her Bur
ial Discloses the Secret.

Baltimore, Jan. 5.-The sky is ov-
ercast; the air Is chill and damp
with a suggestion of impending rain
or snow. In the gloom two mourn.
ers, man and q woman, stand
about an open grave. The grave
diggers fill in the dirt; the man re-
turns Immediately to his work and
the woman sorrowfu11y to a sec1ud-
ed home. She is black woman.
The mound covers the body Of her
white child.
For 10 years Louisa Hartman, a
comedy mulatto woman, had devot-
ed her time to giving her child a
place In the world among white
folk. She allowed herself to be
known only as Mary Harman's
nurse, and in fact was her devoted
slave until the girls asphyxiation
in Philadelphia. When they took
Mary Harmon's body from a little
undertaking shop in Rogers avenue
to Laurel cemetery they buried with
it the nurse-mother's life ambition.
Twenty years ago, when policy
flourished in Baltimore, John Moan,
Ia happy-go-lucky white man, was
known as policy king" He and
Liege Johnson, a negro, controlled
the policy business in East Balti-
more, and as negroes were most i'm
portant customers, Moan spent most
of his time among them. It was in
this way he became acquainted with
Louisa Hartman.
Nineteen years ago in a little
house in Mulliken street, near Beth
ell street, northeast Baltimore. a girl
child was born to Louisa Harmon.
Only few of her negro friends
knew the baby was really hers. She
asked them to keep her secret, and
they did. "a
Louisa stayed in Milliken street
only short time after the girl was
born, and when she moved to a COM
fortably fitted house at 1924 Orleans
street, where all OF her neighbors
were white, she told those who adj
mired the baby that 1t had been
given to her to raise" and that she
had grown to love it.
The mother did not have to earn
her living and the rather handsome
Of the house and the
pretty clothes OF the little girl
the neighbors' belief
in her story. They came to like the.
little one, and the white girls of the
accepted her as q
and never once did little
Mary betray any evidence Of her
Louisa appeared one day in Sep
TENDER, 1897, at st. vincent's Girls
school, and told the Sisters there
that she was rearing the child for
white parents, limited strongly that
there was some reason why she did
not wish to reveal their names and
asked the sisters to educate her.
Thinking that she was white
girl the sisters took her into the
baby class and with the white girls
of that class she started on her les
sons.
Each morning a few minutes be-
fore school time Louisa, dressed In
a white apron and other evidences
of nurse. walked down Front
street with Mary, carrying the
child's books. Many times the
neighbors remarked her devotion
and affection.
"Who is your nurse?" the girls
would ask the child, envying her
pretty clothes and the toys she had
in abundance.
Louisa" she would say. "She's
awful nice"
When the child was 10 years old
still well supplied with
and apparently receiving 1t
from the parents OF the child, ap-
piled at the Notre Dame institute
for admittance for the child. Here
again she told the sisters that she
was rearing the child and to Qnes-
tions as to the parents said she
could not divulge their names.
The sisters gave her a place in
the school. There was never any
question about tuition. Louisa said
she would pay any price. She spec
fled that the child was to be taught
all the accomplishments of a young
lady. but emphasized her desire that
the musical training be especially
Mary was at this time growing to