BETTY GOW RETURNS HOME

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 98, 27 April 1935, Page 25

BETTY GOW RETURNS HOME

Such a'slim, frail girl stepped down lhe gangway from the Berengaria an hour,after the giant liner had safely /.berthed against.the quay at Southamp- •:'■' ton recently that many in the waiting crowd of curious men and women hesitated, to believe that Betty Gow, prominent witness against Hauptmann and'former nurse in Colonel Lind- ■ bergh's household, had landed. Outside her cabin, again on the tfockside «nd yet again at the Customs the people thronged and pressed for a glimpse of the 25-year-old girl who had survived, serene and unshaken, that merciless cross-examination by •Hauptmann's leading lawyer, Edward :Eeilly. Friends hurriedly formed a bodyguard and with Betty's -mother, . who "had travelled from Glasgow to her daughter, fought to project the bewildered girl from the staring, pushing crowd. Dressed in brown from head to foot and her pale face half-hidden in the fur'^of her coat collar, Betty Gow was transparently glad to be back in England. It was plain that the ordeal in the courthouse of Flemington, New Jersey, had ■left its, mark on the passenger .who had - travelled as "Miss .Graham.", Her mother, Mrs. Taylor, was. the first to > see and greet her. •'Oh, -Betty, ■my dear! Oh, Betty!" she said. And then: "How thin and worn ■you seem.", ■' ■ r . ' : . A few seconds later in the privacy of the cabin mother and daughter were locked in each other's arms, and the tears fell freely^ Indeed, "so great was Mrs. Taylor's demotion tha^ she collapsed completely. Efforts by the shipping company to smuggle, the girl ashore wef c frustrated by the waiting crowd, . who speedily discovered that she had been transferred, from the cabin she had occupied during the crossing to ,one' more .conveniently-.placed for an easy departure. ,' For a full hour Betty refused to face the people waiting outside, and when eventually she.made up her mind to * run the gauntlet of cameramen, journalists, and the hundreds of curious sightseers, she found she'had mislaid -the' keys ■of her trunks. After a feverish, futile -search Betty decided to travel to London in the hope that her luggage would follow. She made . the trip with her mother in a close- - curtained car, but the destination was kept secret. Subsequently, however, she journeyed to Glasgow. When asked for her impressions of the trial of Hauptmann, Betty shuddered a little and cried: "Please, oh, please,, don't let us'talk .about it! I've

made up my mind not to discuss Flemington any more. It is all so terrible. Nearly every person I've met has put the same question-to me, and I've come home to forget. "After all, my personal emotions are j nobody's business. They have asked me to go on the stage and give some form of lecture on my reactions to the trial, and big money has been dangled before me, but all t the money in the world won't buy my inner feelings. • "I want to be left alone and treated as I was treated on the voyage from New York. , Officers and staff were kindnes*s itself." However, with the excitement of the landing behind her and.more composed after a cup of tea, Miss Gow thawed a little. "I've been attacked and unjustly attacked," she protested to one of her friends. "They say I did,not tell all I knew. Why should they do that when I had nothing to concealabsolutely nothing!" ...... It was obvious then that, in spite of her apparent calm, Miss Gow resented, and'still resents, the insinuations of Mr. Reilly, who at one stage of Hauptmann's trial accused 'her of complicity in the- kidnapping of the baby^" "It was.unfair and un-English," she cried later. "I told Eeilly everything." ..,,.-: Asked if she could suggest why'the lawyer should insinuate that she was concerned in the- kidnapping, Betty shook her head and answered, "No, for the life of me, I cannot." In spite of the mob hysteria which convulsed Flemington she was satisfied that in the court itself Hauptmann had a very full'and fair trial. ■'•' ' ■ Betty's mother denied: a .report that her daughter had ■ become engaged since the proceedings, and there was certainly no sign oi a ring: on the, girl's finger. "Her future has not .yet been fixed," added Mrs. Taylor. "It lis too early yet to say what she will do. At the moment what she wants, is peace, rest, and care. Betty has' lost over a stone, in weight since she sailed for America, and. before anything else now she must put her health first." v . • ■ It was learned'oh good authority that before she sailed for home Betty Gow had been offered^ the post of . nurse to the Lindberghs' second baby, but when questioned She said, "I don't know whether I shall go back: I^can tell you this much, though, that I should very much like to return to their service if, only to show my gratitude ;to them for all they have .done for me. You Bee, my difficulty: is that all my relations .are in this country."