September 27, 1909
TELLS A WEIRD LIFE STORY.
Waif Picked Up by Police Gives
Account of Himself.
To justify his presence in Kansas City, Theodore Kautz, 14 years old, picked up yesterday by the police in an alley between Walnut and Main streets, Tenth and Eleventh, and placed in the Detention home, told a weird life story of melodramatic interest.
While the family, consisting of his parents, his baby sister and himself, lived in Coffeyville, Kas., eight years ago, Theodore said, a woman nurse left in charge of the baby, angered because the child would not sleep during the mother's absence, shoved it into the oven of the kitchen stove, put on her bonnet, left the house, and was never heard of again.
The mother, he said, drew the baby out of the oven alive, but it died after a few days., and the woman within a year was a maniac. The father, he said, placed her in the asylum and disappeared, leaving the boy to drift.
Coffeyville officials, he said, sent him to the Christian orphans' home in St. Louis, where he lived until a short time ago when, dissatisfied with the treatment, he ran away.
Theodore told the police he rode most of the way from St. Louis to Kansas City in the caboose of a freight train, coming in here on top of the cars. He was ill clad and suffering from cold and hunger. Mrs. Joan Moran, the police matron, gave him an overcoat.
Theodore says he came to Kansas City because he heard his mother was here in an asylum. Probation officers will investigate his story.
Labels: children, Main street, police matron, runaway, Walnut Street
