The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1913-11-25
WAS A COWARD
FOR SEVEN YEARS
Mrs. Bessie Wakefield Lived a
Life Of Fear and Did
Not Know Her
Rights.
NEVER HAD A CHANCE
s Fear Hurdened Slave Of Ignorance
$ and Want Secs Things Now
4 In Different
: Light.
NEVER HAD A CHANCE

li9nts
tBy Alice Rhoe, staif correspondent.
Copyright, 1913. by the United
Press Associations.1
HARTFORD, Conn, Nov. 25.-"l
never knew until they put me in pris-
on that women folks had any rights.
I've learned lot of things that make
life seem different than it did before
they said they were going to hang
me-
Mrs. Bessie Wakefield, the woman
who never had chance" the woman
upon whom twelve men jurors and
man judge fastened the sentence OF
Eeing hanged by the neck until you
are Dead" breathed into her mothers
ears for the first time yesterday, that
awakened consciousness of woman;
this twenty-four year old child of pov-
erty, reared in ignorance. betrayed and
married in shame and degradation,
/ poured fourth the hope that through
her own sex at last some ray OF
help may yet come into her life.
/ Prison walls have shadowed no
more pathetic little group than that
which stood in the broad corridor
outside the cell of the condemned,
where Bessie Wakefield awaits the
j final disposition Of life which she
has never until now regarded as he1
own. Clinging timidly to the blue
and white checked prison garb OF hell
mother, four year old Clara Bellt
lsWakefeld looked with dinly compre
.ahending eyes upon two women weep
ling before her. On the other side O
! the ever present guard, for even witt
4 the brushing of the black angels
! wings in the shadow of the galiows
,, mother and daughter could not speai
in private of things nearest their tor
tured hearts, six year old Georg'
! Wakefield figeted beside his grand
i father, Frank Webster.
Throughout all the frightful har
s ipenings which have crowded into tn
t dazed and uncomprehending mind
+ Bessie Wakefield since that Jun
!. morning when she was arrested
s charged with the murder of her hus
i, band, her one thought has been TO
e the welfare of her two children an
t- the old mother to whom the care 6
IS the little ones has brought additions
worry.
d This deep maternal longing wa
/ gratified yesterday when the iittl
q family group and myself motored frol
A the little home on Lake Quaspaugl
IeI over thirty-seven miles to the Coz
II necticut state prison at Wethersfiel
le From the day when the law reache
4 out and grasped this terrified your
"a woman, she has never looked upo
the faces of her children or her fath'
u or any of her family excepting HI
y mother Poverty. that gaunt spectl
- that has stalked beside Bessie Wax
field since she first opened her eye
u has kept her father, mother and CHI
~ dren from her, although uncomplai
~ Ing, Unconditional people of the farl
the elemental instincts beat insistin
ID ly.
:. "I know now that | never had
chance" said Bessie Wakefield ye
;. terday In the first interview grant
40 to her since her conviction. Mingl
ra toy and grief of seeing her own fie
~ and blood had left her more keen
be interested in the future.
"a. at wasn't until the women OF t
nv state began to try and save me tn
he'll realized what my life had been.
OF one hope now is that they will intert
ed the board of pardons.
~ "You know ! am innocent s
cried, holding onto her mothers hal
And to the mother, who like herss
had been product Of poverty a
ignorance she told again the story
the man she thought might save
:, from the unbearable sufferings Of
u married life,
- "Plew tried to save himself at
,ss expense. That's why I'm here.
In alanned everything. / never knew
nd It'll 1t was all over. l never had BIZ
gh in a court room before. was
m afraid. I've been afraid for seN
en- years. first OF Will cher husban
ro- then of Jim (Plew), then CT eve
of body
Igs All her life the sorrow burdel
he mother had told me in that swift I
ny to. the prison. Bessie had never kno