Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1922-02-08
TAKE TOTS FROM
L0vETO WEALTH
Courts Monotony Relieved by
Heart-Gripping Tale.
BABES ARE LEFT PARENTLESS

Grandmother Seeks to Tear Them
From the Home Where They Have
Nothing but Love-Fostermotner
Cries GIsn't Love Supreme Over
Law?"-Law Answers Children
Must Go to Grandmother Who Has
Never Seen Them.
One million dollars versus love!
That is the perplexing situation con-
fronting Marion Read Holiday, eight,
and her sister, Millicent Pernel Holli-
day, six.
If they were twentyone, with full
power of reason and outside the con-
troll of the courts in the matter, which
would they choose?
Even at their tender, childish ages
they have evinced keen preference
for the love they have attained and
know rather than for the million dol
lars that may be theirs and the affec-
ton that it remains for IAN aged
grandmother to prove.
In the drab, gray drudgery of the
courts months may pass without dis
est to others than the litigants. Then
suddenly, as in this instance, there
bursts from the legal foolscap and the
routine motions of the court star
Ting, gripping, heart-rending situa-
ton such as has torn the emotions of
a family in New Jersey and two little
children and has ripped the blase veil
from the hearts Of the metropolis.
Goes Into Courts.
Mrs. Frederick Sherwood of Fan
wood, N. j., from whom the courts
foster children and give them to their
grandmother, Mrs. Susie Church Hol-
liday of Flatbush, believes her love
will find a way. She cries out:
"Isnt there something higher,
nobler, more powerful than money?
Isn't love supreme over law? l
think there is something higher and
greater than the letter of the law,
and that this influence is love. And
liday."
Reaching back into other years, far
behind the decision of the courts, is
a story of the estrangement of
woman and her son. This woman is
Mrs. Susie Church Holiday, wealthy
widow. with magnificent 60O-acre
estate in Pike county, Pa, automo-
biles, servants, and all the luxuries
her million-dollar fortune can afford
The son was Read Holiday. For
some time he and his mother had
Go co fh0f CHI
did not appear at his funeral when he
died in 1917, though she now explains
her age prevented her venturing out
even on that solemn occasion in the
storm of that day.
Mrs. Read Holiday did not long
survive her husband. She fell victim
two years ago to the white plague. On
her deathbed, as in her will, she be-
sought pathetically that the Sher-
woods, Tong the friends Of her husband
and herself, take care of her two lit
tie orphans forever.
Enter the Grandmother.
The Sherwoods, the facts have dis
closed, are far from Mrs. Holiday
Sr. in finances. From a clerkship
with the Dry Dock Savings Institu-
ton, in New York, Sherwood through
promotions reached the treasurership.
His income is $4,000 year. He has
a neat little cottage in Fanwood and
an automobile.
What he, from his own earnings.
could do for the youngsters would,
of course, be of moderate nature.
But Mrs. Holiday Jr., in the wisdom
of her will, saw to it that ample funds
would be provided for comfortable
rearing, travel and education of the
children.
She provided for each a trust fund
Of 100000, the income to be employed
for their maintenance and education
until they attain their majorities,,
when they shall receive the principal.
Opposed to this assured life of COM
fort is the promise of grandmother
who, Mrs Sherwood AYERS, has never
even seen her grandchildren. Yet the
grandmother went to court for their
custody and makes lavish promise
that they will inherit her fortune,
that she will send them abroad for
educational purposes and furnish them
all the comforts and Injuries her
estate can devise and supply.
And it was the unanimous view Of
the high court that whatever other
considerations entered into fhe heart
rending dispute, there remained the
law The law, they held, dictated to
their judicial consciences that Marion
and Millicent must go to their grand
mother.
1t was so ordered.