BLACK HAND ROMANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 306, 20 May 1911, Page 9

BLACK HAND ROMANCE.

ITALIAN BEAI'TY AND KIDNAPPERS. Like a romance in tile mountain fastnesses of Italy or oil the American border, where the stiletto gleamed and the pistol ready for action Hashed in the sun, i.s the remarkable life story of MayQueen Oddo Gaynor, former wife of a member of the "Black Hand' gang and of William Rufus Gaynor, son of .Mayor Gaynor of New York, and who now, at'the age of tl. contemplates a third matrimonial venture. The young woman's fiance is a Harvard student, lie lias another year in college and then will attend law school. After doing this lie must show to her satisfaction that lie can support a wife—and then, perhaps, if his mother and father are perfectly willing, the pretty Italian girl will consent to wed him. " Frankly the young woman tells why she consented to the annulment of her marriage to Gavnor. She gave him this ultimatum: "Do something or get out." lie would do neither, she declares, so she got out. This is her story as she told in her apartment in the BackBay : '•The young man to whom I am engaged has a career to make. Tie has studies to finish and a family to satisfy. ITe must do all of these things before he marries me. It will be my third marriage at the age of 23, for it will not happen until a year hence. Three marriages for a 23-year-old girl is moving rapidly in the matrimonial line. Also, it being the third time it will not fail as the other experiences did. "My father incurred the enmity of many working Italians in Italy. Tliey all went asrainst him. He lost his money and nearly lost his life. They drove him out of his' native country, and he settled in New London, Con. That was so long ago f did not understand it at the time, I can remember how they used to follow us about, how one evil-eyed person haunted my steps until I complained to my parents about him. 1 feared and hated his face. For two years he was a nightmare lo me. Then when 1 was about 15 he stole me. We reached Boston. A young man was there. They made no .secret that he was one of the younger group of my father's enemies. How they hated my father. This was the sweetest revenge they could obtain. I was 15 and the young man probably 23. "But T did not stay long. I learned that they would abuse me in many ways. They told me that the time was quickly coming when I must be a slave and earn money for them. I made believe I would do so. Tnsteail I got into the confidence of a woman in the block, who sent a fetter to my mother. Mother came and took me back. "My husband had the nerve to follow me and demand me on the ground (.hat. lie was my lawful husband. But they quickly disposed of him by threatening to inform the police of my true age. He ran away from the town, and I never was troubled by him again. "They kept telling me that I was beautiful, but it seemed to me that, most of the other girls were much more handsome. One day I was introduced to 'Rtifie' Gaynor. He wns a college boy from Amherst I married him, just why I can never tell you. "He was the most persistent lover a girl ever had. He wouldn't take no for an answer. He wouldn't stay away from me nor allow others to talk to me, but just kept his presence forced upon me until I married him. I can never understand how or why I did it. "I can seo now that I never loved young Gaynor. Perhaps I thought I did at the time. Well, we married, nnil lie slept mornings and lolled about with companions whilst I went out and earned a living singing and dancing. After a while his father helped him. but he spent the money from home as though it was stage money, and I kept on working to tide over those long, tedious occasions when the wolf threatened between remittances from the Gaynor home. "We went through to the coast. I couldn't, stand it. Either he had to do his share or we would quit, that was all. I was developing a lot of practical common sense by this time. T was beginning to sec that the world was a cold, hard proposition. Finally I gave him an ultimatum. "It. was 'Do something or get out.' He wouldn't do either, so I got out. T left him more than a year ago in San Francisco.

"I came back to New England, to my mother and to Boston, and now I am engaged again."