Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-03-28
TWO MOTHERS SEEK SONS;
ONE RICH, THE OTHER POOR
New Jersey Boy Telephones
His Wealthy Mother Each
Night, but EIudeS Her in
SIuns of New York

NEW YORK, March 25.-(By the
Associated Press.)-A mother cul'
tured and refined, with all the re
sources at her command that i'm
mense wealth can give, today comb
ed in vain the dark, ill-smelling
Bowery for her lost son, heir to ST.
100000.
At the same time another mother
worn by ill-health and hard work,
put together her few clothes and
with firm confidence prepared to
start into the west to find her miss
ing boy.
The first mother, Mrs. Graham
Duffield, of Chicago, has almost 'oST
hope. For eight days she has hunt
ed. Today she visited the hauntS
of the wrecks who have failed in the
battle of life, and dropped out OF
sight into the caldron known as
the BoWery. But she failed.
The second mother, Mrs. Mary
Whitaker, of Henry street, is SUI
preme in her confidence. Her boy
is somewhere in The west, and Tues
day, in accordance with her an
nouncement earlier in the week, she
viii start out Of New York IN a
poor be-draggIed motor car which
she bought with her savings, carry
ing everything she owns, and rea"y
to back her belief against the haTd-
ships of the road.
Mrs. Duffield, whose seventeen.
year-old son, Gordon, rebelled
against school life in Plainfield, n,
j.. and fled to the BoWery, let her
presence be known on her arrival
and the boy responded with tele-
phone calls. But always after tell
ing her he would come to see her,
failed. Tonight his mother appear
ed on the verge of a breakdown, and
feared approaching illness would
force her to return home tomorrow.
She picked up her search today at
the point it left off last night, when
a telephone call from her son was
traced to a drug store on First ave-
nue..
Seeks Him in Slums
Frail, still youthful in appearance
despite the worry she has expert
enceil, she entered squalid roomirG
houses, rubbing shoulders with un-
hempt men, some OF whom leered
at her.
She mingled with the flotsam and
je1sam of Bowery life. asking it any
one had seen boy OF fiVe-feet-nine,
dressed in a faded blue suit.
At one restaurant she was told
that boy answering the general
description of Gordon had washed
dishes there-up to yesterday. AT a
cheap rooming house, not more than
two blocks distanct, she was inform
ed that a youth who, might -haNs
been Gordon had slept up to last
night.
At another restaurant, a sleepy
habitue reused himself enough to
tell the Mother that "a kid like that
guy was down to the Cooper Union"
But at Cooper Union, which for
eight days has been the center of
her search, there was no sign OF
the boy.
Gordon, so he has told her over
the telephone, is trying a personally
conducted experiment. He wants to
experience real poverty, to see what
it is like.
And Gordon, with an air of
bravado, breezes into a pay station
telephone, a different one each
nlSnC, Calls UP HIS ulOlnel, Calls
her Mons" promises to go at once
to her hotel and see her, and each
night leaves her to sit with eyes
glued on a door which never opens.
Determination of MOther-LOve
In a Henry street tenement, a
different scene.
A few days ago Mrs. Whitaker
told her neighbors that at last she
had put away enough money to
make possible her journey into the
west, and tonight she was pushing
forward with her plans just as de-
terminedly as if the, west was only
as big as Central park.
Four years ago in Oklahoma City,
she separated from her boy Sidney
who is two years older than Cor
don. The lad drifted up to the
wheat belt and his mother to New
York.