The young lady, Miss Carrie GOUGE, and Tom got married in a private wedding ceremony.  Shortly after that they both went back to Leadville, Colorado.  In less than one year his wife came back to Mahanoy City and made her home with her relatives.  She gave birth to a son and named him Arthur (JAMES).  For nearly two years Tom sent money to her; then suddenly stopped, giving no reason why.....   I was not well acquainted with Carrie, as I had only seen her a few times.  She held her head erect and had a proud walk.  She was nice looking and of English descent.  I knew some of her relatives named SYLVESTORS.

One evening Carrie came to my home and talked with my wife and myself.  She wanted to know why Tom had not written nor sent her any means to live on.  She seemed to think that I knew where he was.  I told her that he had not written me since he left and that I did not like the way he was doing.....  Her relatives who were coal miners, came to see me one month after.  They were angry at the way Tom was treating Carrie.  I told them that I felt that way also.  They even said that they would go out west and hunt him up and later on they did go out to Denver.

I do not know how Carrie explained to Tom about her walking from the picnic with Mordi.  PARSOLI told my wife he would not forgive nor forget.  I was sure that this was the cause of their separation.  Carrie grieved over the separation all her life.  When her son, Arthur, grew up to manhood they moved to Philadelphia where she placed him in school to learn to be a Methodist preacher.  In all this time, she had not told Arthur anything about his father although he inquired of her to tell him, but she always avoided his question and failed to tell him anything about him.  Her son became pastor of the Covenant Methodist Episcopal Church of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

On one of my visits to see him, I found that he was now married and had a son about two years old.  I had been asked not to speak about his father because his mother kept it from him.  I felt that Arthur would do something desperate should he know of her past life.  Arthur, like his father, was a good speaker.  In the year, 1917, I then lived in Jellico, Tennessee.  My wife and two daughters visited in Pennsylvania.  I felt that Arthur should know about his father.  I had a feeling that he would use his reason about the separation.  He was now old enough to think properly and could freely talk with his mother.  I phoned Arthur that I would like to meet him and that we were returning to Tennessee.  He came at once.  I told him I would like to talk with him privately.  We both went into a private room.

Then I told him all that I knew about his father; that he had been a representative for the Knights of Labor for eighteen years in Colorado.  He then married a judge's daughter in Portland, Oregon, but that she died in two years and left a son who is now living in Los Angeles.  Your father took sick and was nursed by a woman that he afterwards married.  They lived together a short while and then separated.  He then had a law suit over some property.  'Your father is now living with his son, your half brother, in Los Angeles, California'.  He listened intently, but put no questions to me.  I could see he was thinking seriously about the information given him about his parents.  His mother had married again.  I do not know how they talked it over between themselves.  Carrie told my wife that she felt much better now as her son, Arthur, did not lose control over himself as she had expected and that she had worried over it.

When I arrived back in Tennessee, I received a letter from Arthur stating that he was going to California to see his father and brother whom he had never seen.  He wanted me to go with him, but at that time I could not go.  Arthur made the trip and wrote me that everything passed off pleasantly between them.  His father and his second wife came to Knoxville on a visit to see me, but did not go East to see Arthur.  So Carrie and Tom never saw each other since they separated in Leadville, now more than 30 years ago, nor did Arthur see his father alive again.

Some few years after his visit to see his father, his father had a stroke of paralysis and died suddenly.  Arthur went to his burial.  His death broke connection between us.  I have not heard from Arthur for several years.  It is strange how trivial actions will ruin what should be happy lives.  This is one of many broken homes after marriage.  Men like Tom were very jealous when a controversy would come up between young couples.  Husbands, when they think of things done in the past, allow their jealousies to be aroused and then when it is almost too late, the marriage vows are forgotten.  When Arthur was grown, his mother married again.  I do not know whether she applied for a divorce or not.  Neither do I know if Tom applied for one or not.  It must have been some relief to Arthur's mother to know of the meeting of son and father and that everything passed off without the many things that might have happened.