From the Lawrence Daily World for Feb. 5, 1911:

• “Because the neighbors gossiped about her when there was no foundation for their idle chatter, Martha Pinzon, a sixteen year old farmer’s daughter, walked twenty-three miles in search of work. The girl lives on a farm three miles northwest of McLouth. Wednesday morning at 1 o’clock, she concluded she would not remain at home any longer and started for Lawrence. The distance is twenty three miles and she walked every step of the way. She had no dinner nor supper and late that night, utterly exhausted and terrified at the darkness, she knocked at a farm home and asked for lodging. Her request was refused and she staggered on into North Lawrence where she met Miss Annie Karns and was given shelter…. The above story as gathered from the girl, does not appear to coincide with the facts as told by others. It is charged that the girl has been incorrigible and as such became a ward of the juvenile court and was on parole at the time she ran away. It is probable that the girl will now be sent to the industrial school at Beloit. It was indeed fortunate for her that she happened to fall into good hands in Lawrence.”
• “There are rumors on the street today of a contemplated merger of the two phone systems operating here. Color is lent the report by the expected visit here next week of O. C. Snyder, president of the Home Company. His trip here is said to be for the purpose of taking an inventory of the Home property which it is alleged the Bell company is going to absorb. Local directors when questioned today would neither confirm nor deny the report.”