RUGE, Martha

RUGE

Posted By: cheryl Locher moonen (email)
Date: 1/9/2020 at 22:25:10

Evening Times-Republican, Saturday, Jun 27, 1914, Marshalltown, IA, Page: 10

MAY DEPORT WOMAN

Immigration Inspector Investigates
Supposed Bride

Ida Grove, June 26.-The possibility of deportation to Germany faces Mrs. Martha Ruge and her 7 year old son, Theodore, as the result of the investigation the last few days on the part of S. M. Whitefield, a Unites States immigration agent from St. Louis.

It is alleged that Peter Mehrens of this city went back to Hamburg, Germany, some time ago to visit, that he brought the woman back with him as his housekeeper. The general impression around Ida Grove is that the woman is his wife, but the United States authorities disagree with that and have preferred charges against her of being likely to become a public charge and of having slipped into the United States without being inspected. At the Mehrens house, the officer found the woman, who is 38, taking care of Mehrens who is more than a score years older, and sick in bed. It is said that there was nothing to warrant a white slave charge under the Mann Act.

The matter has been reported to the United States immigration officials at Washington. The presence of the woman here was learned when the former husband of the woman appealed to the United States consul at Hamburg to find his eloping wife.