HEIRESS AS A HERMIT

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 36, 11 August 1923, Page 14

HEIRESS AS A HERMIT

STRANGE COLLECTION OF AN

ECCENTRIC.

„ Memories of a' shattered romance worthy of the pen of Dickens when he 'recorded.the tragedy of Mies Havisham were revived at the auction sale of the •effects of Mrs. Emma Lee, of Gallon, Ohio, who died at the age of seventyfive, in the large house where she had . .Jived. fllone. .for many years (says the ■ 'New York correspondent of the " Daily Chronicle "). Emma Colburri was an h"eiress in her own right, when she was ; iiiumed, in the late 'eighties, by a man from whom she obtained a diyorce after a short period oE married life. Her girlish ..illusions dispelled, she became an ; eccentric, Ending her sole pleasure in : frequenting shops and making exfrava- '. gaji't "purchases. For more than thirty ; years she indulged this mania, to tho ;■ great delight and'profit., of merchants of lier own and neighbouring towns. Util- ; ily had'no'part in her scheme of buying, Vi"j;^ai]d-"Siieh-of-.-her. purchases as were not immediately perishable were accumulated _„i-iil_b.er Jiouse and offices until- in the former there were no clear spaces remaining, except a narrow strip 5 feet long in her bedroom, and a path in the kitchen-wide enough to give access to the stove. The'administrators of her estate estimated her expenditures on the bizarre collection of" three decades at £15,000. A few years ago she sold hibst of her dwelling properties to enable her le/devote more- time and money to the passion of her life. At the opening day ' of the sale £6500 persons gathered to bid for, or gaze on, the articles of this

Strange: collection, and the police were

called upon to prevent them from rushI ing the guard of auctioneers' assistants. Those who were permitted to enter the house saw gloves and mittens by the gross; a grand piano still in its packingcase,^as7 it came from the factory more tlia'h"twerity J~years ; moire than four hundred packages of candy, weighing a ton; rugs on the floors "four and five deep; scores of watches and spectacles; and china and glasuware enough to stock

'—seversl shops.' Hidden about the pre^ mises the administrators found diamonds """■"ififd -<>they gems, 10,000 dollars in Government bonde,' a box containing 300 .-,,.,^silver-.dollars, and paper currency and ■xZ- st<?(:k;:.qe"£tifieates. secreted in,about fifty ~r-:tho>usaiid wallets. ... '