The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-12-21
PrOvident Association Sends
Her to st. Francis Hospital.
DAUGHTER KNEW CONDITION?
Sign Over Poor Old Lady's
Door Said, "Stay Out"
She Has Two Grown Sons
sSOmewhere in the West"

Disregarding sign on the door
reading, "Stay Out; You're Not Want
ed Here" placed there, the officers
say, by an indignant daughter. Judge
Robert Yates and Clyde Tresner en-
tered a bare room upstairs at 5zV
Kansas avenue, carried out an aged
starving woman, placed her in an am
hospital
They found her crooked old form
lowering over a gas stove in wh1cn
wavered a wisp of flame. Hungry.
cold, sick and deserted, she welcomed
the strange men and asked no ques-
tions when they carried her out and
! directed the ambulance to the hos
pital.
There the woman is now, very fee
BILE and with little chance to recover
from the effects of the slow starva-
ton from which she suffered. Her
name is Mary Harris. Shes more than
eighty years of age and she Is the
mother of at least three children who
are living One daughter lives in
North Topeka and officers say she IS
the one who tackled the sign on the
door of her mothers room telling peo-
pie to stay out.
The condition of the aged woman
was first discovered by Kate King,
city welfare worker. She visited the
room and found Mrs. Harris in bed,
the room cold and no sign of anything
to eat. She bought some provisions
and reported the case to Robert Yates,
secretary of the Provident association.
Miss King then learned that when she
was able Mrs. Harris went downstairs
to a nearby restaurant and ate her
lunches but that she had been unable
to leave her room for some time. An
| other woman living on the same floor
had provided something to eat on seYr
era1 occasions
1t was after Miss King had visibed
the place several. times that Judge
daughter, the two men say, had visited
her mother and had tackled up the
sign telling them and others to stay
out. They paid no attention to the
sign Inside the room they found the
| aged woman lowering over a gas stove.
| The air was frigid. There was nothing
for the woman to eat and she was
sick
Starved, Says Doctor Clark.
| DR.. H. L. Clark, city physician,
made an examination and concluded
that Mrs Harris was weakened from
old age and starvation.
| she was very poorly nourished" he
| said, land her system indicated that
| she had had an insufficient amount to
| eat for some time. Besides that the
lack of heat and her extreme age
| were against her"
An ambulance was called and Mrs
Harris was taken to the hospital IT
| was stated there today that she is in
feeble condition and showing no signs
of Improvement
Charles Harris, former proprietor of
the Harris Laundry in Topeka. is A
son. He is now somewhere in the
west. 1t was stated today that he had
been sending his mother small
amounts of money occasionally. An
other son is George Harris He is also
somewhere in the western states The
daughter, according to officers, lives
in North Topeka.
Efforts were made some time ago
to place the aged woman in the Meth
odist home but they were unsuccess
full For many years she attended the
Methodist church but in recent wears
she transferred her faith to another
been the cause of her failure to got
| into the home