"I went to a pawnbroker that day and sold my diamond rings, ear-rings, and cross, and with the proceeds opened a rooming house at 1235 Wabash avenue. Mr. McDonald often came to see me and dine there, and it looked as if there might be a reconciliation. But soon after that he met Dora Barclay, and from that time we were friends no longer, but bitter enemies.
"The reputation of my house was ruined by the arrest of Mike Coleman, alias Charles Wilson, the safe-blower, who had lived there a few weeks, and at first I thought Mr. McDonald was behind this plot to ruin me. I went to the Animosa, Pa., penitentiary, saw Coleman, and learned that Mr. McDonald was innocent. But after that a story was started that I lived with Coleman for years. I never saw him after that time at the penitentiary.
"After the World's Fair I removed to St. Louis and started a boarding house at 2686 Locust street. But soon Mr. McDonald's detectives were hounding me there, the newspapers began to print stories of our troubles, and my business was ruined.
Driven to Hide Identity.
"I saw that if I was to live peacefully I must bury my identity, and so, assuming the name of Mrs. Grashoff, I went to New York, and obtained employment with the Board of Charities at Fourth avenue and Twenty-third street, of which Mr. Van Vordenberg was the head. For fifteen years I have been in charitable work. I founded the Destitute Old Ladies' Home at Paterson, N. J., and at present my work is with the Crittenden Rescue Homes for Unfortunate Girls. It is not the least solace for my many misfortunes that I have been able to save many girls from continuing their wayward careers.
"So much for the lies circulated about me for twenty years. I never saw Father Price after he left Chicago, nor Father Moysant after I went to Mrs. McGuire's. Both are living, so far as I know, but where, I do not know."
But the records show, according to Mrs. Mary McDonald, that her husband repented of the wrongs he had heaped upon her, and called her to his bedside when he was dying, acknowledging her as his wife, and begging her forgiveness. They were reunited, and a few days later McDonald died.
Opposed by Documents.
For Mrs. Dora McDonald, on the other hand, an entirely different case is made out by her attorney, Colonel James Hamilton Lewis. He said that he had procured new evidence in the shape of affidavits and sworn statements of witnesses in the suit for divorce brought by "Mike" McDonald against Mary C. McDonald in 1889, and letters in the handwriting of Mary McDonald, and others.
The divorce bill, according to Colonel Lewis, was filed in the Superior Court of Cook County on September 11, 1889. In the complaint, McDonald alleged that he married his first wife November 20, 1870, and lived with her until May 1, 1889. He alleged misconduct in the complaint, naming Joseph Moysant, or Father Moysant, a renegade priest, and gave dates and places of alleged misconduct. He also alleged that Mrs. McDonald had fled to France with Moysant, and that she was not a resident of Chicago, or the State of Illinois.