1915-11-21-New York Tribune-Duped by Davis Pastor Writes to Mrs Kelly

Duped by Davis Pastor Writes to Mrs Kelly

New York Tribune, 21 November 1915, pg 7

Mormon Who Wed Elopers Hurries Here to See Bride's Mother.

NO CHANCE TO ANNUL MARRIAGE. SAYS AL

Mrs. Kelly, Said To Be Ill, Plans to Rent Home and Go West.

The Rev Henry J. Carr. the Mormon minister who married Al Davis and Eugenia Kelly at Elkton, Md., on Wednesday, arrived in New York last night on an errand of contrition. Mr. Carr's mission is to see Mrs. Helen Kelly, the bride's mother, and tell her that the naughty couple imposed on him; that he didn't know who they were, and that he is sorry he ever married them, and that, if possible, he will undo his unfortunate act.

The arrival of the Mormon preacher was not the subject of much concern on the part of Al Davis. When called on the phone he was spending the evening quietly at home in a much-married fashion. "Thai would be a nice state of affairs if ministers could unmarry people!" he scoffed over the wire. "Why, the biggest man politically in the State of Delaware engineered our marriage, and there isn't a chance in the world to have it annulled. Carr is just sore because he has been criticised locally, and he is doing this to square himself with his town."

Mr. Carr prefaced his arrival in the city by a letter to Mrs. Kelly which she received yesterday morning, and immediately sent to her lawyer, John F. McIntyre. In this letter, which Mrs. Kelly said was entirely unsolicited and a surprise to her, the preacher claimed that he had been duped by Davis, and that he thought Davis was the plaintiff in the divorce proceeding in which he figured. At a late hour last night he had not communicated with Mrs. Kelly.

When Mrs. Kelly's apartment, at 116 West Sixty-third Street, was called "a very dear friend of Mrs. Kelly" answered the 'phone and said that she was too sick to come herself.

"Mrs. Kelly knows nothing about Carr except that she received a letter from him. She has gone through so much that she is about disgusted. She has offered her magnificent apartment for rent, and she and I are going out West and away from all this as soon as possible. I do not think that she intends to take any further proceedings, as she is absolutely discouraged. For over twelve years she has been a slave to her two daughters.

"One of them deserted her and went to Europe and never sends her a word. And now the other runs off and gets married. It's pitiful. Now, at her advanced age, she's all alone, and she can't bear to remain in her apartment with everything around her as a constant reminder of her children's misdeeds. So she is going away."

A dispatch from Wilmington. Del., stated that Carr would stop at 210 Schnectady Avenue, Brooklyn. At that address, which is directly across the street from the Reformed Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, E. A. Squire lives. He is a prominent Mormon and a leading member of the Church. He said he knew Mr. Carr, but had not seen him for more than a year and a half. Neither had he received any word of his intended arrival last night.