The Detroit times., 1912-09-20
|FREt AMERICA HAS NO
| OLD AGE PENSIONS, 50
| COUPLE TRY To. DIE
-
bid Frank Engel is Left Alone
Eating Bitter Bread of
Poofhouse
RIVER TAKES ONLY ONE
Penniless and Doomed to Sepa-
ration In Charitable Insti-
tuition. Prefer Death
RIVER TAKES ONLY ONE

BATAVIA. H.. Sept. 20.-Frank
Engel ana his wife, Bridget. ran away
Irom the Kane county aims farm
and took car TO Aurora, where they
lad formerly lived. Frank was 81
and Bridges rs.
The. old pair went out to the little
house they had owned and whero
they had lived for years and years.
I'm front OF what had been home they
stood ana cried. Then they wandered
ito Fox river park, where In years
past they had spent many happy
Sunday afternoons.
This lafternoon they sat with tear
filed eyes gazing out over the river.
Other people. went home to their
beds and suppers, but the old man and
his wife waited by the river bank.
Next morning q street car conduct.
or heard faint cry and ran down
into the park. Near the river sat
the old man. His wife lay with hor
head In his lap, unconscious. Both
were wet and feeble from exposure.
~ guess she has gone home" the
aged husband told the conductor. Il
wish had, too"
The couple are thought TO have lat
tempted suicide together. But the
river was shallow and the old mah's
courage failed, and he tried to safe
his wife. She died two days later
Frank Engel went back to the poor
house alone.
Engel had come to America, from
Germany, At the age OF twenty. In
1872 he settled In Aurora. Ill. He had
married an Irish immigrant girl, and
they started housekeeping In a little
four-room home they bought through
loan association.
= They had no children. Their fiow-
er garden In the front yard and their
vegetables In the back kept them
busy. And they tried TO save enough
money TO keep them In their old age.
All their lives they worked hard,
and tried to save enough for their
old age-and failed. b
Engel got too old to earn much. and
three years ago the cottage was all
they had. They sold the place for
$1,000 Finally that was gone,
They went TO the supervisor OF the
poor. "We can send you to the poor
house" he said. The suggestion
shocked them, as II shocks all who
have worked and lived thrlftily.
II have paid taxes here for such
long time, thought maybe you could
let us have the sam amount that IL
would cost the county to keep Us at
the poor house and We could manage
TO get along," the old man suggested.
But II was impossible" T.
SO they went to the poor house. II
was q big, clean place, with a fne
lawn and good food. but II was not
home. And the old pair were separ-
ated. They who had lived side by
side for a century and who were All
I'm all to each other-one went to the
women's home and the other to the
mems.
And that was why, hand in hand.
they had waded into the river.
supt. John Nicholson. Of the aims
farm" thinks that the Kane county
moor house Is mighty good place
for old people. Most OF them live
better here than they did before they
came" he says. IT costs the county
$3.50 week for each person We
board a.
4 Now. II Engel had gone 70 Aus
tfalia, he wouldn't be alone an the
poor house. ne would be at home with
his wife. getting an old-age pension OF
s.. so a week, and his wife would draw
a like amount--not as charity, but as
something earned by their years OF
work and citizenship.
II neither had emigrated, the man
would be getting an old-age pension
from Germany, and the woman IKE.
wise IN ireland, for in neither OF
those countries do old folks go over
the hiIl to the poor house. instead
they walk up as citizens and draw the
pensions justly due them.
Frank and Bridget Engel chose
America-and got the poorhouse and
the river!