LOVE AND A TITLE

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 283, 3 November 1925, Page 14

LOVE AND A TITLE

DARING GIRL’S' ADVENTURES. DAUGHTER OF MILLIONAIRE. Lifo is just one. lioboing adventure alter another for little Louisa Elotcher, daughter of the millionaire banker of Indianapolis. She hoboed to sea, she hoboed to land, she hoboed into “hobohemia” —and now she has hoboed her way right into the heart of the handsome Count Gottfried von Schmettow, scion of one of the oldest houses of tho Prussian nobility. Somehow Miss Fletcher, though a blue-blood and an heiress, just could not be the conventional little rich girl, says the Vancouver Sun. She refused to “stay put,” to do tho ordinary things in the ordinary way. After her first taste of hoboing she said: “It was great to lead a free lifo for once.” And ever since that moment she has been astonishing the country with her madcap escapades. The daughter of a family whose ancestors for generations have teen prominent in American finance, Mss Fletcher was brought up in an atmosphere of luxury. Her father, Mr Stoughton Fletcher, owned the most palatial residence in Indianapolis, as well as the most famous racing stables in the world. Ho was tho proud possessor of that celebrated horse Peter the Great, sire of many of the fastest racers in turfdom. A BREAK FOR FREEDOM. But all these things meant practically nothing to Mr Fletcher’s adventurous daughter. “I’in tired of being a poor little rich girl. I have had too much discipline,” she said —and set about remedying the matter. At seventeen she made her first break for freedom. While she was spending tho summer at tho Fletcher estate in East Gloucester, Massachusetts, Louisa snatched the opportunity to embark on an adventure that sent her family into a fit of anxiety, the neighbours into a frenzied search and the newspapers into glaring headlines. Louisa disappeared, Starting on a harmless stroll with a maid, the little heiress waited until she was some distance from the house; then, leaving her companion flat, she made a bolt. Her young legs carried her too fast for the maid to catch up, and in another moment she was gone. But Louisa was not all that was gone. Upon investigation it was found that a boat from a neighbouring wharf was missing too.

When the girl was finally found alter a country-side search in which friends joined the polieo in combing the surrounding wooded hills, dragging the bay in the vicinity of the I let .'her house and questioning everyone in tlio neighbourhood, Louisa, unrepentant, described her daring edventure. No sooner had she got out ol sight of tho maid than she slipped down to the beach, and there she transformed herself from Louisa Fletcher, heiress, to “Willie Sullivan,” hobo! Cutting off her girlish locks with a pair of shears and donning denim overalls in the place of her dress, she emerged from behind a rowboat in the guise of a boy. Her next move was to appropriate an 18-foot .8 .vampscott dory and shove off. “A JOB ON A FARM. ’ “After I rowed away from Copper Point wharf, East Gloucester,” said Louisa, “I went to a fishing'boat in Gloucester harbour and asked. Ilie captain for a job. He said 1 was too young. Then I rowed from Rocky Neck shore twelve miles up the Aunisquam and Essex rivers to Jiow'ey. At Rowley I went ashore that night and slept in a barn. 1 slept there the next night, too. For food 1 ate apples. The third day I went to Tpswicli Bay and again tried to get a job as helper on a fishing boat, and again they said I was r.oo young. Tlie morning I was found I had obtained a job on the Upland farm, half-way between Ipswich and Essex Centre. I told the owner, Mr Hepburn, that my name was Willie Sullivan. Ho never suspected that I was a girl. He hired me as a hand, gave me a rake and I went to work.” Louisa Fletcher —temporarily Willie —might have developed into an export farmer instead of a flapper had it not been that a neighbour who saw tKc new farm hand suspected that “he” was a girl. She telephoned the Gloucester police. When the police arrivedwith tho governess in tow, Louisa first tried to keep up tho pretence, then tried to run away, and finally, when she found her efforts were useless, pulled out a package of cigarettes, asked for a match and resigned herself to the fate of an heiress —for the time being 1 SHORT LIFE ON THE STAGE. Louisa's next outbreak, occurring not long after, led her to the stage and bohemia. It happened through her friendship with the members of the Stuart Walker Theatrical Stock Company, one of whom was Miss Julia Lydig Hoyt, actress and New York society leader, who became a great pal of Louisa’s. Her entrance into bohemia did not begin auspiciously, however, lor one of the first things that happened was an accident, and in Louisa’s car, so it was said. Right on top of this affair Louisa’s car was found abandoned east of Indianapolis on tho national road following a crash.

Playing around with theatrical folk was not enough for Louisa. She determined to enter the profession herself and see what it was like to bo on the inside. Without the least ado she “hoboed” off to Broad way and joined the chorus of a musical revue. Even this soon proved tame. Last spring, when a party of friends suggested hoboing to Europe, the poor little rich girl was the first to say “Yes.” It was just in her line. A now adventure, and who knew what might turn up ? That it would bo a Prussian nobleman and a romance on the Rhino, not oven tho madcap heiress could guess. A CASTLE ON THE RHINE. Perhaps it was the daring spirit of tho American girl and her originality plus her beauty that captured the count. At any rate, Ernst Gottfried von Schmettow, the 24-year-old heir of tho ancient house of Schmettow, laid his heart, his title and his worldly possessions, which included a magnificent castle on the Rhine, overshadowing even Laurel Hall, the famous Fletcher mansion, at her feet. The engagement was announced by a cablegram from Germany ,stating that the wedding would take place at Pommerscig, and that the German nobility would turn out in full force, including ex-Crown Prince Willie’s son.