GIRL MARRIES BROTHER

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 May 1938, Page 3

GIRL MARRIES BROTHER

COUPLE PARTED AS CHILDREN. LONDON. April IG. Tragedy has conio to a Belgian couple who have discovered, after being married a year, that they aim brother and sister. They have a baby son. Their parents lost trace of them in the German invasion of Belgium in 1911. The girl, Yvonne Bruyer. who was only two at. the time, was looked after by Mr. and Dlrs. Semple, natives cf Leicester, who had been living in Brussels and fled to England before the. invaders. Of Henri Bruyer, two years older, nothing was heard for some time, until he was found after the war living with French peasants who had sheltered him after ho had roamed many miles into France.

Many years later the Semples returned to Brussels, where Mr. Semple represents an English business house. By a strange trick of fate, Henri Bruyer found employment in the same house at Brussels and fell in loye with the adopted daughter of the Semples: in due course they veic married.

They were living happily in ignorance of what has now clouded their] lives until a few weeks ago when the authorities insisted on more precise details of their origin. The husband was able to give details of where he was born, but for the girl it was necessary to seek the'aid of the war-time refugee association. The authorities found that both parents were dead., and they obtained details so precise that there is not now the least doubt that the young wife is the long-lost sister of her .husband—and there is no law in Belgium to legalise their union.