East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1921-08-15
Mrs. NibiaCk Has Same 0pin-
ion Of Oklahoma That Mary
MacLane Had of Butte.
Written by Margery Rex for Interna-
ticnal NeMs SerVice.

Written by Margery Rex for Interna-
ticnal News Service.
NEW YORK, Aug. l5.-High- -spir-
tied women and high towns are IN
compatible.
Mary MaetAne or Montana. said so
many years ago
Carol Kennicott, heroine of Main
street" had an awful time in Gopher
Prairie, both with the town and the
natives.
! Mrs. Clark Durea, minister's wife. OF
Monticello, n. Y. ran away with an
other man because, as she said, she
couldn't stand life in small town.
Now here's Mrs. Frances Haskell
Nihlack who prefers divorce to life in
Oklahoma.
The beautiful and clever daughter
of the first governor of oklahoma
Charles n. Haskell. could not go back
to the husband whose voice called to
her from the vast steppes of that re-
gion from New York state.
Mrs Nihlack, in 1908. married Les
lie G. Nihlack. army officer. Not till
Z
splendor that is conceded TO be New
York City.
Right then and there something
told Mrs. Niblack she never again
could so back to the wide fields of the
great golden West. No more silos,
overalls or oil wells for her
Wanted No More oklahoma.
The year 1917. which marked the
ladvent of Mrs. Niblack in Gotham
also is memorable as the initial date
of the great conflict The prairie dogs
were exchanged for the dogs of war
Mrs. Niblack became a nurse and went
overseas, as did her husband then be-
come a major.
War ended, the army officer ex-
lpressed a desire to see his home town.
His wife compared it with New York
to the serious detriment of the Okla
homa municipality. She asked divorce
on grounds of cruelty She lost her
case hut her husband won freedom.
charging desertion.
Thus does lovely woman spurn un-
lsuitable background for her talents
land charm.
Let us look back to the time when
Mary MacIane first started to fer
lment way out in Butte. Mont. At first
the startled natives didn't know what
her unusual talent for self-expression
meant. Some suggested it was mad
ness. few thought genius The few
were right.
The militant Mary's whole problem
y
OF her friends suggested. after The
Story of Mary NTacEane' had excited
wild comment, much of it unfabora-
BILE.
| II there was anything the matter
with Mary. Butte. Mont, was to
blame. so her friends said. Mary was
tthe pioneer enemy OF monotonous life
However, this weird genius is al
ways well able to express bitingly and
jpicturesque-if often tiresomely- her
reactions to life. place and circuin-
stance. For instance:
MaryS Morass OF AIonotony.
Il and all other seamstresses and
lmonotonous clerks and lawyers and
housewives sit upright in chairs and
talk into telephones and walk fast and
eat breakfast and british hair: all the
while marooned in morass of small,
wild. unexciting. tasteless pain.
Naturally Mary was none too care
full to hide her dislike OF Butte and its
: 'lpeople and Just as naturally those
lspurned ones showed their dislike, too
Mary says of them:
Il meet people on the street whom
I know, whom I may speak 10. whom
I may avoid. who may speak to me
vino may avoid me, for | am best well
hated in this Butte
"Paltry. rude" 'dingy. these
words were used to characterize her
home town by the oddly-talented and
glad-to-be misunderstood young wo-
man.
I In another sentence she speaks Of
being as free as wildcat on a twi-
I light him.
Mary McIane's strongest supporters