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The day book. (Chicago, Ill.) 1911-1917, April 13, 1912, Image 1


Persistent link: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045487/1912-04-13/ed-1/seq-1/

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500 SO. PEORIA ST 398
Vol. 1, No. 171 Chicago, Saturday, April 13, 1912 Ohe Cent
But Floretta Whaley's Eyes Fill With Tears as She Looks at Hep
Two Sturdy Sons, Born Out of Wedlock, Denied
Their Father's Name.
NewjYork, April 13. With
her two sturdy sons, 'rosy-cheeked,
healthy laughing cherubs,
playing about the room, Floretta
Whaley, the "unmarried wife,"
today declared she was "the hap
piest woma nin the world !"
It is five years now since Flor
etta Whaley eloped with the Rev.
Jere Cooke, pastor of the fashion
able St. George's Episcopal
church, of Hempstead, Conn.
She was only a girl of fifteen.
He was a man of thirty and
married. She attended his church.
She came to him with her trou
bles. They loved each other.
People-began to talk. So the
pastor and the girl decided to
defy the world. They disappear
ed. -There was the usual flaring
headlines in the newspapers. The
usual sensational stories, full of
suggestion. And ttiere was a
broken-hearted woman in Hemp
stead, who once had called her
self Jere Cooke's wife.
The fashionable society of the
quiet New England town was
shaken to its foundations. The
V " -
members of St. George's churchy
were aghast.
And everybody prophesied that
the elopement that had "broken
one woman's heart would break
another, and leave a minister of
the gospel, once respected above
fiis fellows, on the bitter, salty
shore of dissipation and ostrac
ism. Since that day five years ago,,
Jere Cooke, the white-handed
minister, and the young, gently
cultured, beautiful girl, have suf
fered terrible privations.
For months they were hound
ed from place to place; fearful
they would be recognized, arrest
ed, and taken back to the New
England town where once they
had held their heads so high, as
There were times when they
were hungry; times when they
were homeless ; times when they
were afraid to look a fellow hu
man being in the face. , '
But they have pulled throqgK
it, and if ever a woman's face
backed up hef statement, Fld
retta Whaley's did today when
she said that she was "the hagpi-
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