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dis* Mabel Finley, as She Appeared Fourteen Years Ago,
When the Man of Mystery Courted Her.
OF all the published eases of "sub
merged personality,” resulting
from Injury to the brain which
blotted out memory and left the victim
Ignorant of all his proceeding life, even
of his own Identity, and which a surgical
operation has restored, bringing back the
distant past but obscuring events during
the period of "submergence,” that of
George Kimmel, the "man of mystery,” is
strangest
Kimmel's submergence during the four
teen years of his wanderings was not con
stant and absolute, except in one odd par
ticular; though, at intervals, for days at
a time, he realized rho and what he had
been, the romance of his young manhood
remained a complete void. The name, the
face, the very existence of his old sweet
hea-t had been utterly swept away.
When, at length, he returned to his old
home during an interval of fairly com
plete lucidity, to recognize old friends and
be recognized by them, and to talk over
details of his former life, there was no
evidence of his slightest recollection of
any love affair. The name of his old
sweetheart was almost the only name
familiar in the old days that never fell
CHAPTER I.
Romance.
THE birthplace and scene of the one
love romance in the life of George
Kimmel is the pretty little city of
Niles, Mich. —just around the south end £
-m; .vnc.iiga.. item Chicago. Here the
- . > J : p . River winds its way
among the small-fruit farms that supply
Chicago with berries from June till late
In August, and is the objective of many
Summer pleasure parties from the me
tropolis across the lake.
George- born in 1867 -and his sister,
Edna, three years younger, enjoyed a
nappy childhood up to the time of
their parents' separation while he was in
high school. A little prior to that event
a smoldering feud between the prosperous
Kimmels and the struggling Johnsons—
Mrs. Kimmel's people -blazed forth un
pleasantly. The separation left Mrs, Kim
mel with two children on her hands, and
only a small income.
from his lips.
Yet it was mainly due t 0
the efforts of that same
old sweetheart —for many
years since the wife of one
of his old chums —that a
celebrated surgeon was in
duced to perform the dan
gerous operation which
alone could be hoped ■ to
permanently and com
pletely restore his mem
ory. Rut no sooner was
the bit of depressed skull
lifted, and the moribund
brain cells came fully to
life, than Kimmel opened
his eyes ami whispered
eageriy:
Alu l l i> Mabel"'
The lost link—the only complete lost
link was restored. Safely out from under
the surgeons knife, Kimmel was on firm
ground, with his courtship of pretty Mabel
Finley the sure and sound landmark from
which to accurately view his whole past
so lor .5 obscured.
Following are the important chapters
in George Kimmel's strange story, drawn
mainly from bis own statements*
So Georgs, j bright and attractive youth,
left high school and went to work in the
paper pulp mills at Niles. He kept up
his acquaintance with his school chums
the Platt boys, Sam Quimby. Harry Burt
and Will Lardner. The girls in their
"crowd" were especially Celia Dean and
Belle and Mabel Finley. As children.
George and Mabel bad been "sweet
hearts." She grew prettier and prettier,
and now, with George in the way of mak
ing his own fortune, their love romance
began in real earnest.
There was no question that George was
desperately in love. Mabel's preference -
for him was plain. It was an ardent and
pretty courtship, and before George was
twenty their marriage, as soon as George
was able to support a wife, was accepted
as a foregone conclusion. To hasten this
delectable consummation. George secured a
position in the First National Bank at
Niles, of which an uncle—William Stevens
—was president, and his mother's brother,
Charles A. Johnson, cashier.
In this position George's prospect*
And When the Surgeon’s
J*t
Knife Relieved the Com
-pressed Cells,Out She Popped
in All Her Youthful Char tn ,
to Add the Most Tragically
Romantic Chapter in the
Mystery of George Kimmel's
Double Personality.
brightened, but there developed and wid
ened a rift In the lute of his love affair
with pretty Mabel Finley. Afterwards
George was certain his uncle, the cashier,
wilfully engineered a breach between them
—a sort of recrudescence of the old Rim
mer-Johnson feud that had separated his
mother and father.
"In public my uncle could net be too
good to me,” George has said; "but in
private he brutally mistreated me. He has
been the underlying cause of all my mis
fortunes.”
In a fit of pique—though loving Mabel
Finley as deeply as ever—he threw 7 up his
position and left Niles. He went to New
Orleans, then out to Dakota, where he
worked in an Insurance office. His sister.
Edna, joined him and became a district
school teacher. In 1890 they moved to
Omaha, where they lived for six years.
His love romance was over—Mabel Finley
had married William Lardner, who was to
become a rich mine operator in Duluth,
Minn.
CHA PTER 11.
Finance.
DURING those years George Kimmel
had prospered. From Omaha he
went to Arkansas City and took
charge of the affairs of the Farmers’ State
Bank there, which were in a bad way. It
was a bank in which his uncle, William
Stevens, of Niles, was interested. As its
president, he restored the concern to a
solid basis and acquired personal prop
erty valued at more than $26,000. Later
his uncle became the nominal president,
with George acting also as cashier. His
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Photograph of George Kimmel, Taken After the Operation
to Restore His Memory.
prosperity was sufficient to warrant his
taking out life insurance, tlf-st of $5,000
and later of $20,000 more.
Here enters vague accounts of his other
uncle's, George A. Johnson's, efforts to
make him selling agent of bonds repre
senting more than $200,000, which he. on
published information that they had been
stolen, forwarded to the concern which
had issued them. And now George Kim-
Hlpl’tt Til i cfnrt f, rt £>a Vntrnn iv» rlnnd aabmao*
mei s mistortunes began in dead earnest.
As cashier of his Arkansas City bank he
carried, in July, 1898. $19,000 worth of
township bonds to the State Treasurer
for redemption. He did not accept the
cash, but the promise of the official to
mail a draft for the amount to his bank.
But on his arrival in Kansas City, much
to his surprise, the hotel clerk delivered
to him $520. sent from his bank to the
hotel on his telegraphic order. Kimmel
had sent no such order, but put the money
in his pocket.
Here enters more vague references to
his "wicked" uncle’s appearance on the
scene, a drugged drink or cigar, a period
of unconssciousness, an awakening in St.
Louis, a walk out in the dark, an assault
by three men not y(*t named—a blow on
the back of the head w r ith some heavy
weapon, then—oblivion.
CHAPTER 111.
Wanderings. Asylum. Prison.
IN 1904 a haggard, ill-dressed man, ap
parently middle aged, wandered from
one town to another in the northern
part of New York State. He called Ulin-
self Andrew 7 .1. Win ills mind seemed
confused. He lived precariously, from
hand to mouth and seemed unable to give
any account of himself. In 1905 he was
sent to the Matteawan Prison for the
Criminal Insane, convicted of "beating" a
board bill in Buffalo. The regimen seemed
to agree with him. He improved much
in health. Suddenly his mind cleared, aud
he announced himself to be George Kim
mel —the George Kimmel, of Niles, Omaha
and Arkansas City, whose mother had col
lected $5,000 of his insurance money and
then was suing for $20,000 more in the
St. Lon s courts, declaring her son was
long since dead. ,
. The case had received so much pub- /
licity that "White’s” announcement of his f
identity attracted wide attention. His de
scription of events in George Kimmel's J
life were so accurate that he was declared /,
sane and discharged. But a return to //
his wandering life darkened bls mind /
again. He was presently arrested on a; /
charge of forgery, convicted and sent to j
Auburn Prison on a five years’ sentence—i |
as "Andrew J. White.” But iu Auburn', '
his mind again cleared. Again his state- 1 '<
ment that he was George Kimmel inter-H I
sered with the efforts of his relatives to I I
collect his life insurance. When the St. \\ ’
Ixiuis court decided that Kimmel was still \ \
alive, his mother and sister—the latter \ \
now Mrs. Edna Bonsett, of Chicago—vis- \
ited Auburn to determine whether he was& V
George Kimmel or an impostor. \ '
They would not recognize him; but \
Kimmel, during a later interval of lu- \
cidity, . remembered whispering in his \
mother’s ear: f
oue looked at him
in silence, and then
. whispered: "When w r e are alone, call me
1 mother.’ ”
CHAPTER TV.
’ Fighting lor Recognition.
GEORGE KIMMEL'S prison sentence
expired on September 18, 1911. He
was met outside the prison gates
by his best friend, Harry L. Fox, of Niles,
whose wife is one of his cousins. They
took the first train for Niles, where the
whole town was anticipating his return,
about equally devided between belief and
disbelief. The old Kimmel-Johnson feud
was again in evidence. The Kimmel side
recognized the ex-convict as George Kim
mel; the Johnson side, including his
mother and sister, would not be convinced.
Every important newspaper in the
United States reported the scene when
the ex-convict confronted Mrs. Kimmel
and her daughter, whom he claimed as
mother and sister, at the house of Mr.
and Mrs. Fox. The man recounted many
incidents of his life in Niles which had
undeniably happened; but the two women
subjected him to several tests in which
he failed. They regretted that they would
have to repudiate him as George Kimmel.
Being penniless, Kimmel was anxious
to have his identity accepted in order to
get back property "Inherited" from him
by certain of his relatives. Naturally the
insurance company which issued his life
policy readily believed him to be the
living man they Insured. Experts, apply
ing the Bertillon system, declared the
man's identity as claimed by himself.
All through these tests, while Kimmel,
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“What am I to call
you, if not ‘mother’?”
Qhn IrwAlriid nt him
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at times, was astonish
ingly lucid in describing
old-time happenings tn
Niles, he gave no sign that
he remembered his old
love for Mabel. Yet she
Mrs. William Gardner of
Duluth—had joined ' the
Foxes enthusiastically in
their efforts to rehabilitate
him. It was she, In fact
—through a friend— who
who induced Kimmel to
"take one chance in a thou-
sand" by submitting himself »
ration on his injured held h r ?“ o, ? e "
brated surgeon. DrLofen
Robert Burns Hospital in Chicago
e ,. knew as 110 snlff ed the ether that
ever regainin’^ 0 Very , niuch against his
world. galnlng consciousness in this
With his instruments Dr. Wilder tre
phined the sunken bit of Kimmel's skull,
relieving the pressure on the long be
numbed brain cells, and put the patient
to bed unconscious, but physically saf .
perhaps to awaken mentally sound.
CHAPTER V.
KWhat the Surgeon's Knife Revealed
IMMEL’B unconsciousness lapsed
into a healthful sleep lasting sev
eral hours. When he awoke a
nurse was leaning over his hospital cot.
Kimmel looked Into her inquiring eyes
and spoke for the first time since the
operation.
"Where’s Mabel?" he asked.
The nurse called the surgeon. Kimmel
could turn his head unaided. He was
looking anxiously about the room
“Where's Mabel?" he asked again.
“She wa« all youth and
charm—untouched by the
year* while his memory
slumber ed/
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They quieted him and he slept agate
Mrs. Fox and her friend, Mrs. Maudt
Quigley, also of Niles, were summoned
They solved the “Mabel" mystery fol
nurse and surgeon. The operation was a
grand success! For the first time Kim
mel had recalled his one love romance,
pronounced the name of his old sweet
heart—ail the rest must follow!
And, apparently, so it has. While Kim
mel regains his strength in the hospital,
reading an occasional cheerful letter from
Mrs Lardner. his old sweetheart, whose
husband, his old chum, heartily Indorses
all her merciful attentions, the old George
™™‘ii e i ba s k agaln knlts to g«ther the
ravelled ends of his memories and plans
a future in which no one will deny him
either his identity or his materia] rights.
One detail of his convalescence is a bit
hoar-the feeling that the sur
braPn fe ' ln r ? lasing those compressed
hannv dw«’ h , 1,11 back - Presto! to the
nappy days of his love romance. She was
all youth and charm, untouched by the
years while his memory slumbered
Incidenth" r<l t 0 ' iVe through again the
FinuX 1 s f hlB eolran gement from Mabel
™ ey , hB , Bweeth eart of his schooldays
and hfs early manhood.
.. .
