The Bridgeport times and evening farmer. (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1918-1924, 1922-06-03
BY JAMES MILAN,
International News Service

Correspondent.
Toxic, June 3.-1n Homo, a Slum
district Just outside of Toxic. there
lived the half-cast daughter of a
Boston man, who, after years of
practical destitution, at last is earn
ing enough money to buy food for
herself by teaching English to HOMO
policemen. Raised from babyflood in
the home of a German and educat-
ed in the home of an English mis-
sionary in Toxic, her training was
to Japanese, however, and the last
marriage resulted in exiting her from
foreign friends. the writer being the
first foreigner she has seen in fifteen
years when he located her hut in the
heart of the slum district.
During these years she has been
almost penniless, and only since she
received employment from the police
a few weeks ago has she known just
where money would come from the
next day to buy food for herself and
her young daughter. From these
years of hardship there remains but
fact that she thinks she is an Ameri-
can.
Mary Susie Rose. or ''Mary-san,"
as her policemen pupils call her. was
born in the South Sea islands, on one
OF the Pelew group, just east of the
Philippines. According 10 the mea gre
knowledge OF her birth, a storm
ragged on the Pacific for days nearly
lI1ly years ago ana Wnen the Island
folk awolle one morning to find the
sea calm the remains of an American
trading boat were found scattered
along the shore, in this wreckage was
a man, whom the natives carried to a
nearby hut. There was a young girl,
daughter of one of the minor chief
aims of the tribe, nurseed him back
to life. The man was said to have
been Henry savannah Seagrave, a
sailor, whose home was in Boston.
(aStRWav Matches for
For weeks the castaway watched
the horizon from morning until night
for signs of a boat, but when none
came, like other shipwrecked men,
up blacksmith shop on the island
and finally married rf1e girl who had
nursed him. In the summer of 1877
he died of fever, and a short time
after on November 6, his daughter-
the woman of the Toxic slum-was
born.
When :he child was two years old
her mother died from grief over the
fathers death. A short time later a
German by the name of Rose visited
thei sland and when he left took
Mary Susie with him 70 his home on
the southernmost OF the BONN Is
lands, where he gave her his name
and raised her as his own child.
Five years later Archdeacon Ronald
Shaw, of the Mission of the Church
of England in Toxic, found the little
SlI1 anu hST 10 where
she was cared for as member of
his family and was educated at St.
MargaVet's school. When ten years
old she spent a few months at her
heme, and it was not until then that
she learned of her parents and the
circumstances that caused the mar
riage of her father and mother. AT
the age of 16 word from the BONN
Island home of the expected death OF
her adopted father caused the girl to
leave the Toxic school to go to his
bedside. There she nursed him back
to life, but the German had married
gain during her absence, and his
wife finally succeeded in driving the
girl away.
Then Rose consulted Japanese
friends and arranged a marriage
with a prosperous Japanese mer-
chant. For a while their married
life was pleasant, but the husband
took 20 riotous living. and when their
son. the only child. was II years old.
he left her.
Adopted Father Dies
Meantime her adopted father had
died, and as she got nothing from
his estate circumstances soon neceS-
STATED the arrangement of another
with a Japanese in 1906. |
soon after the birth of a daughter. |
they moved to Toxic. but intense
hatred for foreigners held by the man