Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1926-12-21
POLICE HUNT FAILS
F. TO FIND MISSING
WIFE OF DR.. HOUCK
But Husband Is Confident
She Is Still AIive-Father
Goes Back to Ohio.
STATEMENT SAYS PLAN
TO SEPARATE WAS MADE
Parting for Brief Time Had Been
Proposed to Permit Him
to Recuperate.

Iouck, who disappeared from her
Congress Heights home two days be
fore her husband, DIR. Knutt Houck.
psychiatrist on the staff of st. Eliza
beth's Hospital, was found in a dis
tant city. suffering from a mental
collapse, had failed completely this
afternoon. so far as the police are
concerned.
In the meantime the missing wom-
ans father. John Walter. and her
brotherin-law. Capt. r. Il. Clarke,
who rushed here from their home. in
Canton, Ohio. to assist in the search
when her absence became known, re-
turned suddenly to Canton last night.
taking with them Mrs. Houck's s.
year-old son.
Mother Also to Leave.
a few hours before the two men
started back for Canton. they had de-
clared their intention of remaining and
running down some matters which
they felt required explanation. Stimuli
taneous with these announcements,
Mrs. II. X. Houck, Dr. Houck's
mother. declared she would remain In
Washington only long enough to pro-
vate sanatorium near Baltimore when
he is released fro custody at Gal
linger Hospital.
DR.. Houck was bright and happy
this morning after enjoying a night
of perfect rest, physicians at Gal
linger Hospital declared. When he
was questioned about his wife, hoping
that he might remember more details
of the events that led up to Mrs.
Houck's disappearance early last
Wednesday morning. the man asserted
emphatically that he felt she was alive
and would turn up eventually.
There are many places she could
have gone and been protected by good
friends, DR.. Houck told the phySi-
clans. She threatened to commit
suicide many times, but she did not
mean it. I am confident she did not.
She is probably staying with some
friends somewhere outside Of Wash
ington, refusing to return home"
Replies to Interviewers.
Asked if he could explain why she
had not taken her little boy, too, par
ticularly in view of her intense love
for him, DIR. Houck said ne believed
his wife had left the child behind pur-
posely, so that she would have an ex-
a good rest and given him an oppor-
tunity of having one. When news
paper men sent a message to DR..
Houck inquiring about his dreams,
he shot back the reply:
Tell them / dreamed about butter
cups. I'm crazy, you know, or sup
posed to be, anyhow"
Incidentally, DR.. HouckS family is
sued a statement this morning point
- A..
his wife were in a highly nervous con-
dition and had planned separating for
q brief time. so that DIR. Houck could
go away and rest. They denied, too,
that DIR. Houck had ever struck his
wife hard or that the pair had had
domestic difficulties.
DIR. Houck became confused with
each repetition of his story of the
tragedy, upon his return from Hor-
nell, N. Y, yesterday. He told news
paper men that he had beat up"
his wife. Later on he assured his
mother, she asserted, that he had
"only slapped Mrs. Houck. To po-
lice, he admitted that there had been
fight. When they asked Houck to
lead them where he thought his wife
might be. the physician replied:
That's a thought! Let me see!
believe she's under the bed"
Bent SpectacIes Explained.
The police declared that DR.. Houck
talked disconnectedly about his wife
having regarded him as 'weakling,"
and that she Thought his intellect was
superior only when he wore his
glasses. That accounted. he admit
ted, for the bent speCtacles that were
found with Mrs. iiouck's torn cloth
ing after the physician had disap-
peared. He hated the spectacles be-
cause of that and had destroyed them
himself.
Mrs. Houck. the Doctors mother.
said she was convinced some time ago
that both her son and daughter-in-law
were bound for a collapse mentally.
A physician herself, Mrs. Houck rec
ognized symptoms, particularly in
the wife, which convinced her that
her psychiatric studies were under
mining her entire nervous system and
bringing her rapidly to the brink of a
breakdown.
GLADYS loved me and confided in
me-" Mrs. Houck said. "She adored
her husband so intensely that she was
always attacked by the fear that she
might lose him. She believed he was
so intellectually superior to her that
to reach an intellectual level equal to
his So she began studying psychiatry
with him, and she did not have the
capacity to overcome the problems it
brought to her mind"
Determined to Study.
II saw it coming. I pleaded with
her. / tried to make her understand
that her place was to keep good
home and to bring up her child prop
erly, and help her husband in the
ways a good wife can be OF such in
estimable help. She was possessed
with the belief, however, that nothing
would do but for her to become a stu
dent of psychiatry. She could not be
The story of Mrs. Houck's own
trouble was confirmed by other per-
sons at st. Elizabeths Hospital. They
added, however. that her troubles
were caused partly by her growing
that her husband was los
ing his mind That, they said, ex-
planned her frequent visits to DR..
Philip S. Craven. a prominent mem
ber of the hospital staff. A c,4sc
friend of DIR. Houck' $, he advised Mrs
Houck on various phases of her hus-
bands condition.
Faced with this tangle Of circum.
Continued on Page 5. Column 2.(