The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1921-09-10
DON'T ALWAYS STAY DEAD


We suppose some of our readers,
particularly those who belong to the
Presbyterian church and the Odd Fell
lcws, remember man named Turner,
who .dwelt among US for about ten and
half months previous to the last
Sunday in May, on which day he de-
parted from our midst, bidding all his
friends except his wife goodbye. As
there was not perceptil5le any reason
why he should leave that excellent
lady, who had married MIN only few
months before, his friends, Of whom
he had number, could only come to
the conclusion that he had gone off
in temporary alteration, forgetting
he had any wife. This however was
partly dispelled in few days when.
Mrs. Turner received postcard mail
ed in Jacksonville from him, saying
he was on his way to fill good job
and would soon send for her.
The Star, like every other paper
twenty-five or more years old, is too
accustomed to having printers leave
suddenly to pay much attention to
such an, event, that is the single men;
but the married ones seldom have
money to go further than Gainesville,
and become too fat and lazy to walk,
sc this event was two-days wonder.
But it was beginning to slide back
into limbo when Mrs. Turner produced
letter, purporting to be from Tur-
ner's daughter. Paulipe, in Wabash,
Ind, saying her father was dead. The
account in the letter was that Turner
ON his way to East ST. Louis, where
he was supposed to have job, stopped
in Wabash to see his daughter, that
after being there few days he was
taken sick with paralysis, and after
several days, during which he suffered
greatly, died and was buried, and the
little daughter, after weeping bitterly
and mourning, sent the sad news to
her dear stepmamma.
The Star rather doubted this story.
For one thing, the letter was very
poorly written for schoolgirl of four
teen, and for another Turner had
shown one of the staff several letters
from his wife before she came to
Ocala, and the handwriting was sus-
piciously familiar. For still another,
there was only sixteen or seventeen
L
parture and the arrival in Ocala of the
news of his death, and when one came
to fgger up all the young lady said
had come to pass in that time it really
looked like in the last days, funeral,
proper time for weeping and at least
three days on the road for her father
going and the letter coming, she had
made no allowance for lost motion.
It seems like the Star crowd thought !
Mrs. Turner wrote that letter herself, /
to save her face, but none of them
told each other so until the other day,
when telegram from the Employing
Printers Association of Milwaukee
said Turner was in that town asking
for job, and could the Star recon-
mend him. The Star wired back Tur- |
ner was a good printer, but he was
dead, so the man in Milwaukee. must
be an impostor. 1t now looks like
Turner was not only alive, but un-
aware that he ever had been dead, so
if if he was in Milwaukee the Stars
telegram must have puzzled him
much.
The matter might have dropped +
there, but the young lady member of
the Star staff said her intuition told /
her Turner was alive while one of the
boys, VINO has read too many detective
stories said his intellect told him
Turner was dead. They backed their t
respective judgements. They didn't /
bet, because that would have been
against the law, but the young lady
was to have a box oil candy, if her
judgment was the best and she was to
buy necktie if it was the worst.
They set inquiries on foot, or rather
on the mail service, and the young lady
found nothing to back her intuition
with. But the man knew where to go
or send for his information, and it
soon came against him. Turner in
deed has daughter, a nice little girl
Irving in Wabash, Ind, but he hasn't
died there or elsewhere, so far as the /
Star knows.
The young lady has her box of
candy and her defeated opponent is
ccnsoling himself with the belief that
the necktie would have been red
one, and wouldn't have matched his
rnln1 scheme anyway.