The Washington herald., 1916-02-06
E1opem ent of Ida
Won Claussen a Few
Days After Being
Paro1ed From Asy-
lum Most Fantastic
of Runaway
Marriages.
BY WINIFRED VAN DUZER.

Iney We sprung up anu spFOuleu
and bloomed and gone to seed
with the wind that blows between the
worlds tanning 'em and the stars set
round like footlights.
Courtships have begun at the begin
ming and sized along to the end where
dusk meets dusk in mines and the only
wind is the laboring breath of electric
fans. They have happened most often on
the sea-shore, though they're indigenous
to million-dollar hower-flled conserVato-
ries, and to three-room fats where the
only blooms surviving four flights Of
stairs and natural gas are the half dozen
paper carnations, colors variegated. pur-
chased at the corner stall.
Courtships may be managed beauti-
fully at house parties where shaded lights
and cushioned corners abound. or in de-
partment stores where the aisles overrun
with glaring customers and the head
swims with cries of "Ca-a-ash!" They're
satisfactory in business offices, and in the
starched-Hnen, ether-weighted atmos-
phere Of hospitals courtships have been
satisfactory.
But this courtship was a madhouse
courtship!
1t began within the well, If not very
favorably, known walls of Matteawan 1t
wound itself round the lonely heart of a
woman patient twas she really insane?)
and round the sympathetic heart of an
attendant, holding them fast through
months of separation. 1t grew stronger
while she languished at the Middletown,
N z, State Hospital for the Insane and
he held the keys to her cell And it
finally eliminated in the most fantastic
Of runaway marriages, burlesque staged
publicly for the world to laugh at. But
then it was madhouse wedding,
Mrs. Ida Marie ByTnes Won Claussen,
recently of the MiddletOwn hospital. less
recently of Matteawan, still less recently
of BloOmingdale, is married again, Not
that a marriage would be much of an
event in her life of events excepting that
the bridegroom is DR.. Francis Albert
DOna; that she has broken her parole
by again accepting marital obligations:
and that her fortune, which is worth
mentioning. is involved Fact is, the for
tune is so actually involved that
the hOneymooners have spent
ulOSt VI Iu6ST time at d QOIel In At
lantiC City, with their hearts in
Bermuda and their eyes strained
toward the Won Claussen family
strong box in New York Two 81
wedding ceremonies within twen- ~
ty-four hours had united them ~
more or less securely and a pro-
posed third ceremony CLOSED the
occasion with verYe. Howsomeyer
weddings, no matter how in
~ a
as Dona's only asset seemed to be
the mystery involving his identity,
and as his bride could not re-
turn to her native heath without fear of
being caught up and clapped back into
the place where excess of temperament
is a requirement. they just had to worry
along on hope.
But all 1t not yet finished-will not be
finished, ever perhaps-and Governor
Whitman, Commissioner of Correction
Katherine B. Davis, and some others of
those persons around New York had bet
ter look out-thats what they'd better
do!
The day before Christmas Ida Won
Claussen was released from the Middle
town State hospital. She went to live
with her brother, Matthew B. Claussen,
appointed her guardian, on West Eighty
ffth street. A nurse. Miss Anna Lilley,
was installed and instructed to make the
pelican, said to sleep with one eye open,
to resemble a drowsy freside cat for
wakefulness. Justice A s. Tompkins of
the supreme court, who handed down the
decision at Nyack which released the
beautiful and eccentric woman, directed
that she should not be allowed on the
street without an attendant; also that
promptly upon any tendency to again
write threatening letters-a falling of
hers in the past-she be re-committed to
the asylum.
All seemed to go well in the Claussen
home. Ida talked of getting married.
Her brother, believing opposition useless
as we'll as unscientific, humored her
along. Her nurse, believing likewise,
humored her along. They didn't believe
she'd marry. Besides who'd be wanting
to marry her?
So a few days after Christmas, when
she told Miss Lilley that she was of for
the altar rail, the nurse without objec-