The Oregon daily journal., June 13, 1909, Page 31, Image 31

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l tie 1 rianguiar Love
Affair That Was a
Puzzle to Cupid
ZOVE'S martyr, they have called her in
Cincinnati.
Her life, for years past, has been
spent in the tender relief of human pain.
Her heart, for week's past, has been
racked with its own anguish.
The youth, the beauty, the loyal devo
tion of Louise Militz, the trained nurse so
widely known and admired for her profes
sional skill in Cincinnati, were not able to
hold her erstwhile lover, Dr. David Judkins
Dickson.
He is now the husband of the young,
beautiful and rich widow of Lycurgus Win
chester, formerly of Baltimore.
In Cincinnati the nurse is still following
her calling, repenting of what she has de
clared to be the most sublime renunciation of
a woman's soul.
In New York the man she avers she
freed that he might win the fame he craved
is the bridegroom of the rich and socially
distinguished widow.
&nd Cincinnati, Baltimore and New
York, with the breach of promise papers
filed ludicrous sequel to a tragedy of the
heart such as Daudet would have honored
with his pen are all asking the same thrill
ifig question:
Did Nurse Militz freely give up the
doctor to the wealthy widotvf
THE romance of the devoted nurse is one that
begins amid the crash of guns and the fall of
cities. Her father was a colonel of the German
army In the Franco-Prussian war of 1870.
He came to the United States, and adverse fortune
brought his family to the poverty faced by ao many
well-born foreigners in this strange, stern land of
promise.
His daughter, like the children of uch foreign
families, was well educated. Louise Militz speaks no
(ewer than five languages, a girl trained and accom
plished as few of the wealthiest of Americans, her
skill In languages being supplemented with all the
experience of a seamstress and the ability of a secre
tary. Next door to the mansion that Is the home of Con
gressman Nicholas Longworth, In Cincinnati, is the
mansion that was the home of Dr. David Judkins, one
of the men prominent socially and professionally there
for many years.
His son-lfl-law, the late Charles T. Dickson, seven
years ago, needed a secretary, while Mrs. Dickson
needed some one who could help with her sewing.
The two offices were merged by the employment of
Miss Militz, an ideal addition to the aristocratic Dick
son household save for one consideration.
There was a son named for his grandfather David
Judkins Dickson a young fellow of the age of the
pretty girl secretary, destined for bis grandfather
profession.
PEACE AND LQVE
There is alwaya danger. In parental eyes, to rich
young heirs in charming, cultured 'girl secretaries, and
oven In seamstresses. The danger was surely there:
but. like a cloud that appeared only to heighten the
loveliness of a morning, it vanished almost with the
jcontlng of the girt -
- The young fellow's mother Instantly appreciated
the charm and strength Of the nature that waa In
Louise Militz. Tho outcome of the so-much dreaded
"danger" as Miss Millts haa denned it, was simply
peace and love, and ths splendid hops that sometimes
unites lovers and parents in a bond which Is ths dear
eat in the whole round of earthly happiness.
Miss Mllits. in the course of the disclosures she has
made sinco ts first publicity attended the marriage
Dr Dickson proposed with Mrs. Lycurgus Winchester,
baa from Urns to tlms given ths detail cf her heart's
romance, and Its tragedy; so the review
that follows Is that of the chief actress In
thi latest thrilling drama of llfe'a real
stage.
Youns Dickson and she- were attracted
to each other from the flrst few weeks of
her residence at his home, she says. It
was far from being a mere, foolish,
boy and girl romance, youthful as
both were. And It was so far from being objected to
by his family then that his mother fully approved his
choice when she vu informed of their engagement,
and co-operated in the plans the lovers made for their
future.
They were plans that have been made by many
others and. by many others put Into practice amid
enduring felicity, David should carry out his design
of studying medicine at Miami Medical College. Louis
should enter the Cincinnati Hospital and learn to be a
nurse.
Heir to an Income of $5000 a year as David was, he
and she. when they should marry, would, of course,
be Independent of any need for her work for wages
at the vocation she would acquire.
But, trained as a nurse, she would bs fitted, with
her exceptional education, to be a physician's Ideal
helpmeet no mere, commonplace wife, stranger to all
her husband's hopes and thoughts; but a friend, com
panion and counselor, his equal Intellectually, hla sup
port and stay In any of the countless emergencies of
his difficult profession.
David received his degree In 1906, and Immediately
went abroad to travel and prosecute his studies.
Louise received her diploma as a nurse a year
later, and forthwith entered upon the practice of her
1 1 i
FOR a long time the royal ladies of Italy
have been dissatisfied with the fashions
from Paria. This was generally known, as
on many occasions had Queen Helena ex
pressed herself.
But that their disapproval of the creations of
Worth and his compeers should result in any ac
tion was never for a moment believed. For has not
Paris, as the arbiter of fashions, laeen supreme
for centuries? Who should dream that any one
even a queen would dare think of snatching the
supremacy in clothes from France!
LIKB most queens and princesses and members of
royal households, the queen of Italy, ths
queen dowager and their ladies had their "
dresses cut and made after the latest approved
Paris models. So they appeared at court; so they ap
peared before the populace, '
calling, respected everywhere as a nurse of excep
tional merit and received in the social circles of the
city as a girl of the best position, althougn Known to,
be poor.
Dr. Dickson returned from Europe two years ago
and, after a comparatively brief stay In Cincinnati, be
took himself to New York, there to win his way to
prominence in the medical world. A litftle longer,
only a little longer, Louise thought, and the dream of
the now distant girlish years must come true.
Her lover wrote to her hundreds of letters and
such letters!
Would to God I could make you happy 1
Little girl, all the iweetness In ths world Is embodied
In you.
You have your work; peopls love you, and you ars a
success and you have not David.
Such dear, impassioned longings; such tender, re
sponsive hopes Louise Militz, amid the many unpleas
ant duties that fall to tho lot of nurses, had alwaya
that promise to light her glimpses of tho future.
Then there came a letter that left the radiant
future black as night. In New York he had met Mrs.
Winchester. She was very wealthy, the daughter
of Dallas Bache Pratt, the banker, her home at 2
West Forty-eighth street. She was a widow, her hus
Now, as antiquity lends dignity to almost anything,
the dictum of Paris had so long been Implicitly re
ceived that few persons ever thought of criticising
the garments that were built In the French capital.
Queens and chorus girls alike' were glad to wear
the creations ''from the boulevards; queens wearing
newer and more elaborate dresses, naturally.
It mtty have been Queen Helena's early training.
As princess of Montenegro she was reared in a horns
of extreme simplicity. She grew up with a distaste of
the meretricious in fashions as well as in life, and has
always been noted for the quiet elegance of her dress.
So, some time ago, when Fh walked into the bou
dqir of thequeen-mother and said, quietly but deter
minedly: "I am no longer going to wear the absurd
fashions they send us from Paris, but Intend to' have
artists design our costumes Queen Margherita was.
net very miub surprised. Rome was. :
Not only did the dowager queen pledge her support
to Queen Helena !n the movement, but ths duchess of
Aosta, and Genoa and the Princess Letitla, aunt of
teOMMSHIONLyAKF
band, a member of the Baltimore banking firm of
Winchester Brothers & Co., having been suddenly and
horribly killed In a collision in Baltimore with a trol
ley car while he was driving at midnight In a blind
ing snowstorm.
Disappointed in his endeavor to storm speedily the
heights of his profession in the great metropolis, de
spite his private fortune of $100,000, despite his years
of study here and abroad, miserable and self-accusing,
her David, she says, told Louise that in marriage with
Mrs. Winchester he saw assurance of realizing all his
ambition.
Her added wealth, her established social status, her
wide circle of acquaintance, meant immediate recog
nition of his powers. Without them, for ell his for
tune and his industry and such modest aid aa ths
training of Louise could give him his might be the
lot of the obscure, unhappy practitioner, forever tor
tured with aspirations that must come to naught.
AGREED TO GREAT SACRIFICE
That, as Miss Militz has described, was her lover's
appeal. It was not In vain. Her heart dying within
her, she found in her rejected love 'the strength to
write to him that he must fulfil what he believed to
be his destiny.
She loved him too well not to love him better than
herself. If his life with her wealthy rival could be
happier than dull obscurity with her, then. In the
greatness of tho love s.he bore him, let him marry
and take the best that life could offer.
She found a magnanimity beyond even that. She
wrote to the woman for whose sake her lover had
forsaken her. ,
"Oh, my dear Mrs. Winchester," she pleaded, "treat
David well. Give him your love withoul stint."
But that was not all. The terrible strain of parting
fell upon her three weeks before the day her betroth
ed was to wed her rival. He saw her, she says, In
Cincinnati. She lay In his arms and. mastering the
sobs that shook her, told him:
"Go, David, go. I love you; and, dear, because I
the king, said they were with ths young qusen In her
crusade.
All agreed to give up the French fashions. More
over, they determined to establish fashions of their
own. They would employ artists men of taste, of cul
ture 'to design their gowns.
The dresses should be elegant, simple, artistic to a
classic degree. There should be no more absurdities,
no "pipe effects," no overladened bundles of laces and
spangles.
Instead of the bizarre they would have the simple;
Instead of the freakish, the classically chaste and aus
tere. The entire aim would be to obtain the acme of
the artistic.
When the news was rumored abroad there were
gaeps of astonishment, incredulity. There was in some
quarters oold disapproval. Usurp ths supremacy ef
--Is? Tell the famed "builders of gowna" that they
fjrere wrong? That they were without sense ot the
.utlc, merely sewing together, hodge-podges of
gaudy laces and fabrics?
love you, it cannot be I who will ever bar the wax
to your advancement."
There was, however, one factor which neither he)
nor Louise reckoned with. The announcement of hi
approaching marriage to Mrs. Winchester brought fi
Louise Militz the ordeal which a woman dreads more)
than the recreancy of an acknowledged lover.
She found herself In the position of a girl who, fot!
years, had been recipient of attentions and the posses
sor of the standing of a fiancee, and now, she said,
discarded as lightly as though her claims had been
the veriest, Impudent pretense. t 5
And down In her secret soul, with that despera
tion with which a woman clings to her heart's desire,
she had hoped that her generous abnegation would .
stir in the man she loved such a moving recognitlen ot
her worth as would suffice to keep him true to her.
As the das passed and the time for Dr. Dickson's
marriage drew near Louise Mlilts realised that sh
was sacrificing more than her love more than anjrf
man should ask, more than any woman could afford
to give.
Her pride, too, rebelled. To the letter she had sent
his new betrothed no answer was vouchsafed. Hsr
whole being rose in protest.'
She demanded of him that. If he do nothing else, h
make public acknowledgment of the fact that he had
been her promised husband. The middle of May was at
hand; the marriage was only a few days off. All that
Dr. Dickson was reported as saying was this:
"I have no regrets to express; no opinions t$
change. Mrs. Winchester's parents were Informed,
fully, of the circumstances. They have given their
approval of my marriage with their daughter. I am
greatly surprised at the action of Miss Mints, for, onlyV
a few days ago, she stated that she would do nothing
of the kind."
On May 20 Miss Milits, in Cincinnati, entered suit '
against the doctor for damages amounting to (50,000.
Only the trial of the romantic case can determine) -the
truth of the beautiful nurse's storY; and only the
Jury, then, will decide the romantic question: -
"Did the nurse give the doctor to the wealthy
widow?"
That was what the ultimatum of the royal ladles
amounted to. That was what, although they said t
not, many ladles not of royal blood had thought And '
these hailed the decision of the Italian queen wltls
acclaim. They were at last to be relieved from the
terrible tyranny of clothes. ' -
A body of artists has been employed by the Italian!
queen to make designs for gowns and hats. These
win be passed upon by the royal ladies. Their gowns
will be made strictly after these designs. Ths artist
will neither notice nor consult the fashions of Paris, .
They will start out on entirely new and novel lines.
They are now making the first dresses for the royal
ladies.
Imagine with what bated Interest social Rome)
awaits the advent of the new gowns. Imagine with
what suppre-ssed, uneasy Interest Paris waits. FoF
what If other court ladles should follow the example)
of the Italian royal ladles? What if Rome should be- ;
coma the fashion center of the world?
Already alarming news comes from Roumanla. It
Is nothing less than that Queen Elisabeth known as
"Carmen Sylva" has inaugurated a campaign against
the wearing of corsets. A manifesto. It Is said, baa
been issued by the queen asking all women to boycott
that article of dress. Corsets, declares the queen, d1s,
figure the body, conceal the natural graces and Injure)
the .health. In the manifesto, which is printed in
dozen languages, it is hinted that the queen favor;
the classic Greek attire.
It is customary In the courts ot Europe for thejf
ladies to follow the example of the queen. So It Is
generally believed that ' Just as the ladles of Rom
follow the example of Queen Helena and ths Dowsger
Queen Margherita, those of Roumanla may imitate)
Queen Elizabeth and doff the objectionable corset.
Of course, the announcement of Queen EMsabeta'
manifesto did not cause as great a surprise as tt
might have had it been Issued before -th an
nouncement of Queen Helena's Intention. For the es
chewal of Paris fashions by many might be regards
as the last straw! '
Queen Helena, who has endarect herself t th
Itallan people, has always been noted for her sanity
and Independence. She has often stated thm otiquity
did not excuse fa'ultr customs, and that because su!
things as fashions were established did not make them
right. Paris fashions, she declared, are valgsr and Is
artistic For the result of that decision-the fair
Ulna-world traits.