New-York tribune., 1920-03-07
we and Romance No Guaranty of Happy Marriage
Latest War Triangle Serves to
Disclose What Is Twice
a Tragedy

rTIS not always the hottest flame
that makes the most enduring
y fire.
Thara was more than the
rral moiety of romance in the WOO
inc and honeymoon of Lee Shippey
Kansas City poet, lecturer, news
paper man and Y. NJ. c. A. worker
and Mary Woodson, herself a mag
.y;ne writer and newspaper worker
Now that love is ashes on al
abandoned hearthstone. Mary Wood
son Shippey is i'll within dark
4 sned room of her mothers home in
Kansas City, separated by half q
continent from her husband in Los
Angeles. while Mile. Madeleine Ba-
hin. third corner of the triangle
from which no harmonious note ever
;s struck, awaits the verdict of the
Federal authorities as to whether OF
mt she shall be deported to France
from whence she came.
The Story
Briefly, Lee Shippey went to
France as Y. NJ. C. A. secretary
leaving his wife at home with their
nine-year-old son. Mrs. Shippey took
the place on a Kansas City paper
her husband had given up to &c
to France. Returning from France
Shippey told his wife, when she met
I him in New York, he had formed
an attachment for Mile. Babin and
asked her to get divorce sc
he could marry the younger woman
Mrs. Shippey refused. Mile. Babin
and her mother and younger sister
came to America, ostensibly on the
way to Portland, Ore, where Mile
Babin was to teach, but stopped in
Kansas City. There, it developed
the French girl was to become q
mother. Shippey renewed his plead
ings that his wife obtain a divorce
She refused. She would take the
French girls baby and rear it as
her own, she said. Neither the
prospective mother nor Shippey
would agree to this, and therein the
story departs from it's similarity tc
the Spiker case, so recently in the
public eye.
Mrs. Shippey's family reported
tie affair to the immigration au-
thorities and deportation proceed
ings were begun. There the legal
status of the affair rests.
Neither to Blame
Now for the human equation. Nc
one in Kansas City who knows Mr..
and Mrs. Shippey has any blame to
attach to either for their broken
romance. Hasn't it through all time
been admitted that the little god is
blind? And when an arrow is fired
IN the dark, whose is the fame or
the blame for the bullseye or miss!
Lee Shippey and Mary Woodson
II loved each other madly. At least,
they thought they did And when
one. IS very young how is one al
ways to know the real from the tenn
porary infatuation? Anyway, all
melr friends were agreed that their
marriage was real love match.
Inc name of Woodson was one to
eon]ure with in Missouri. In Vir-
elnla the Woodsons would be F. F.
vs. Belonging to the old Southern
aflstocracy of the state, an uncle of
mrs Shippey was a Supreme Court
Judge Of Missouri and her father
I was also of the bench.
Mary Woodson early showed
promise of the brilliant mind that
'ater won her place as a maga-
aae writer in the fiction field
''hoolmates as they were, it would
nave been remarkable if she and
Lee Shlppey had not been drawn to.
se'ner by the similarity of their
tastes, If by no other attraction.
Tried by Fire
Soon after their marriage thei,
"'e was tried by fire, which
"Vu'o nave seemed to have cement.
~ " beyond possibility of destruc.
sO''' having cleaned his pipe with
.0oa alcohol and smoked it i'm.
aeolately afterward, being ignorant
.ae peculiar tendency of the
sauiy fumes to attack the optic
ss ss'Ve' Shppey was stricken totally
a Auo with the suddenness OF
s" .aent. For months he could see
hss'l hssa'og. Gradually the light crept
f,', N INTO his eyes, but he has neve,
'4''y recovered his sight.
through all the weeks ~ dark