On 25 August 1912 (his daughter Muriel's fourth birthday), after visiting Ada in the Edward Livingston Trudeau Sanatorium in Saranac Lake, New York, where she was receiving tuberculosis treatment, Denis, as his brother did several years before him, disappeared from his family and all known friends and acquaintances. From that day forth, Denis never contacted his wife nor children again. After being abandoned, Ada and her daughters moved to Monrovia, California to be near her sister Lillian and where Ada continued to receive tuberculosis treatment at the Pottenger Tuberculosis Sanatorium which was run by Ada's brother in law Dr. John Lanabee Pomeroy. Eventually Ada established contact with Denis' brother, esteemed Hollywood director William Desmond Taylor. William generously began sending Ada $50 per month to help support her children.