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66

What my relatives endured, is as Kipling says, Quite another story," and I have neither time nor inclination to dwell upon it. My last visit in New York, in the fall of 1905, had been at the home of a cousin in New York. His wife was a beautiful Kentucky girl. A man followed her until she turned one day and stamped her foot and said, "I'd like to know what you are following me for. If you don't stop it, I'll tell my husband."

A very kind and respected man and his wife took charge of my mother's home in Jefferson, and a man walked up and down in front of her house until she went out and said to him, "I want to know what you are doing here. You make me nervous and if you don't leave this minute I'll call my husband." The man disappeared and never came back.

I have the correspondence between the lawyer on the other side and Madame Frèchette and Chas. Gleason, and I must say that poor, sweet, refined Madame Frèchette could not understand the way the lawyer on the other side wrote to her. But I will say that after Mr. Peeke met Madame Frèchette in her home at Ottawa, and Mr. Gleason in Seattle, his manner towards them and me changed remarkably, and very apparently. October 25, 1906, he gave an affidavit before Justice Lewis in Seattle, which is one of my most treasured keepsakes I have to give my little boy. In it he says that in all his wanderings and

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going to places where I had been, he found the child had been treated with kindness, had been instructed by Mrs. Brewer, as far as the circumstances would allow," and was convinced by what he had heard that Mrs. Brewer's dominating motive in taking away the child was her great motherly affection for the child. "The affiant is convinced and believes that the said Annette F. Brewer has a deep and abiding affection for said child and that the dominating motive in her removing the child from the custody of the Common Pleas Court of Erie County, Ohio, was her affection for said child and the affiant believes she has no intention of contempt for the authority of this Court. That the strain in which the said Annette F. Brewer has been under for the last ten months has in affiant's opinion, and from the evidence that has come to his knowledge, affected the health of Mrs. A. F. Brewer.

"In affiant's opinion, there can be no substantial benefit to anybody by punishing her for contempt of Court, which in affiant's opinion is more technical than otherwise." (Signed) HEWSON PEEKE.

After the visits at New York, Turks' Island, and in Alberta and Montana, Mr. Peeke reached Seattle and met Mr. Gleason; and when he found that Mr. Gleason's position and reputation in Seattle made it impossible for him to even bring habeas corpus proceedings against him in Seattle, of course there was an attempt made to come to some agreement, but all the

agreements were that the poor little boy must go into a school. Would you put a delicate child of seven, eight, or nine years of age in a school when he was well, and you could teach him yourself, and when you were receiving letters with such extracts in them as this:

"The time will never come that Mrs. Annette FitchBrewer can take up her residence in Sandusky. She could come at intervals to visit the child, or for some temporary purpose, but that would be all, and that would be not because of Mr. Brewer or myself, because I do not care, but because the Court would not tolerate it, and, in the second place, I feel that a very brief experiment with the public opinion of this town would convince Mrs. Brewer it would not be best for her to live here permanently. I trust you will pardon the frank statement, that, she would find it lonesome.' (Signed) H. L. PEEKE.

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In February, 1908, a letter was sent to Madame Frèchette that Mr. Brewer was to adopt another boy.

"In my opinion, one month from to-day will see a boy in I. C. Brewer's home. The boy under consideration is but two months older than his son and of good family, and your guess is as good as mine as to which boy it will be. The aunt of the boy under consideration has just died, and we will very shortly be compelled to fish or cut bait."

(Signed) H. L. PEEKE.

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