MRS. DUPONT SAYS HE FLED FROM FRANCE WITH HER BOTH MAY BE DEPORTED

Emigrant Inspector Whitefield investigates Case at Mystic - Woman Says He Got $2,000 From Her

In Appanoose county’s foreign colony there lurks, in all probability, many a romance and as romances go, frequently there are sombre sides to them. The Citizen’s readers will recall having read some time ago of the loss of the wife and four children of Frank Lefevre, of Mystic, in the Titanic disaster.

The story was told of how Lefevre had worked hard as a coal miner and saved money to send back to sunny France for his family, and how when the news of the sinking of the rent ship came, he would not believe that his loved ones were dead.

Kind hearted citizens of Mystic made up a purse to pay his expense in going to New York to see if he could identify two little children saved from the wreck as his own. He got only as far as Chicago, where he learned that there was no hope.

The beautiful romance has been spoiled somewhat by the investigation of the Titanic Relief society and the U.S. Immigration Bureau. It develops through that source that Lefevre when he left Labin, France March 10, 1911, eloped with Mrs. Martha Dupont nee Amant who deserted her husband to come to this country with Lefevre.

In a confession secured by Emigrant inspector, S.L. Whitfield, the woman declares that she paid the passage of herself and her son, Anselm, and also those of Lefevre and his daughter, Leo, and that the party traveled as one family, Lefevre giving the assumed name of Henry Du Mountier.

The woman says that after living with Lefevre for three months as his wife he turned her adrift, her money being all gone except 60 cents. Lefevre, Mrs. Dupont, and the children were taken into custody and are being kept by Sheriff Dowis at the county jail while Inspector Whitfield has forwarded the papers in the case to Washington, D.C., and it is expected that the man and woman and minor children will be deported.

Inspector Whitfield has been in this vicinity several days making investigations, and Mrs. C.A.. Baker, of this city, has been acting as interpreter. It seems that Lefevre applied to the Red Cross society for aid, and had also expected to get some money as damages from the steamship company. Mrs. Newcomb, in charge of the relief work, wrote to the city officials of Mystic to find out about the truth of Lefevre’s claims and in this way it was learned that he had lived with another woman, his case was then turned over to the Federal authorities.

Inspector Whitfield said that so far as learned Lefevre had actually sent for his family, it being represented that the man borrowed $100 for that purpose. The woman’s husband is still in the old country.