FORTY YEARS GONE

Evening Star, Issue 19658, 10 September 1927, Page 12

FORTY YEARS GONE

A MIND’S LONG BLANK MEMORY TWICE LOST A BLOW WITH A STONE. In a little workhouse infirmary only twenty miles from London is a welldressed, well-educated man, who states that he believes that Queen Victoria is on the throne, and who says he is puzzled by all the talk about the “Great War.” Yesterday to him is a day forty years ago ;) when ho was playing “duck on the rock” near his school. His schoolmate, Hubert Blake, who lived near him in the neighborhood of Minneapolis, United States, threw the rock toward him aud struck his heitd. He was fourteen years of age then, and every- i thing that has happened since then is a ) blank. At some time since - he was fourteen he has forgotten everything that happened before he was hit by the stone. At that time, when memory failed him, ho became “Mr Albert Mayfield.” . ‘ A few weeks ago, wbeu “ Mr Mayfield was travelling in a steamer from Siam to London, Ins nose bled, and then Ins ears. He fell to,the floor. He was “Mr May-1 field ” no longer, Events since bo was four-, teen years old were forgotten. The forgotten happenings ot his boyhood surged , back. , I The grown man knew only that ho was | Master Albert Gurney, of Rose, near Min- | ncapolis, that “ yesterday ’ he had gone along the railway to school, that ho had begun to play, and Robert Blake bad ; thrown a stone. In one second ho had forgotten the name that had served him since boyhood, his wife, his children, even (lie languages ho had learned in the forgotten Iravols'of (he last few years. FAULTLESS MASTER OF ENGLISH. | When an interviewer visited him and walked with him in Hie gardens -of the workhouse, he found Mr Gurney, as ho must now be called, a, well-read man, speaking faultless English with a. full American accent. His face, calm and smiling, is that of a good-humored professional man. His mind now, apart from the question of memorv, seems quite normal, and ho has, of course, been convinced that many ycais have elapsed since his boyhood. Iwo Americans who met him a fortnight ago calmed him when ho saw an aeroplane, lie, said ho did not know what ragtime is, and had never heard of jazz. Of his family, lie said. “ Father’s name is Henry Ebenczer Gurney. He was born at Briantvillo. Mass. Ho ; married Nellie Farnham, of Dcsplames, H-1 liuois. We moved to Wakegan, Illinois. Father then taught music at the Forest Hill Girls’ Seminary, Lake Forest. Then , ho went to Stuttgart to study music witn; Frank Richards, and when ho came back wo moved to Chicago. He was m Kimball s Music House there. “Then wc went to Minneapolis, where father got a partner, Mr Wells Hinsdale, and opened a music shop called. Gurney and Hinsdale’s Music Shop. I went to tho Old Washington School there. Mr Moore was principal. That was 1880. That brings me to the time when my memory gets dim. We moved to Rose, six miles out from Minneapolis. It was there that I was bit by the stone. I remember no more. WIFE AND CHILDREN FORGOTTEN. On tho subject of bow he lost ono part of his memory to, regain another, Mr Gurney said: “Before I collapsed on board the Fiona I bad. according to officers and friends on board, talked as a mining engineer. I bad booked in Siam. I had said I had a wife and two grown-up boys. Passengers told mo afterwards that 1 F P ok( J several languages. Now I cannot recall wife or boys, know nothing of my profession, cannot remember anything of the Fast, and cannot speak any language but my own. As to what lias happened between boyhood and a few weeks ago, my mind is a Plank. Mv passport is that, of a Briton, in the name of Albert Mayfield, and 1 banded this and my letters to the captain, and ] understand they are hold in connection with Foreign Office inquiries. Mr Gurney walked with (ho reporter to a motor car, where he said simply, “Wonderful things. I was astonished when I saw them for the first time on landing.