THE CINCINNATI TIMES-STAR
June 29, 1904
NEWS
scans from newspaper
collection
of
Ruth
Adams-Battle
transcribed by Dorothy Wiland
White Man Is to Marry Quadroon.
Mrs. Andrew Adams Says That She Would
Rather See Her Son Dead -
Her Home Broken Up and She Will Leave
City -
Aid of Courts Invoked in Vain.
“I would rather see
my
son dead than see him married to a colored girl.” Back of this
exclamation,
made Tuesday by Mrs. Andrew Adams of 724 West Fifth street, is one of
the
strangest stories that has stirred the West End in many years.
This
remark followed the visit of Mrs. Adams Tuesday to the Hamilton County
Probate court in an effort to have the marriage license refused.
The attaches informed the sorrowing parent that if the girl and youth
are
of age, no authority could be involved to give a refusal. The
application
to the police officials resulted in the same way. A young
quadroon,
Lizzie Sulser of 26 Avery alley, and Willie Adams, a white youth son of
Mrs. Andrew Adams, are to be married. The announcement of the ?
quadroon
and young Adams last Saturday night last they would be wedded Wednesday
bought a dramatic enu? To the remarkable incident that has been
agitating
the West End for the past year and has been accompanied by many strange
situations. Bitterly opposed to the union are the parents of the
white boy, and the colored mother of the little quadroon was for a time
against the union. The wedding is to take place Wednesday.
Meanwhile the parents of the white youth are using every means in their
power to prevent the wedding. When Lizzie Sulser was a child in
short
dresses she was a girl of remarkable beauty, so it is said. The
Adams
have always conducted a candy store at 724 West Fifth street. It
was at this place that, when she came from St. Ann’s school every day
that
the Sulser girl used to stop with her school books to buy candy.
William Adams, the white boy, used to wait on Lizzie. From this
acquaintance
there developed, 18 months ago, a closer friendship. The home of
the quadroon is just around the corner from the candy store and home of
the ? family. Every Sunday at first and later on every night
Adams
called on the girl. These visits were made all unknown to his
parents.
One day when he found out that she had colored boys as lovers in
plenty,
she laughingly shocked him, a box of love letters. In a made rage
Adams tore up every epistle. He then told her she must be for him
alone, and must have no other lovers. She agreed, and says that
she
no longer allowed the colored men to come to see her. About two
months
ago Adams’s parents heard of his attentions.(Continued on Page 6)
~~~~
page 6
William Adams Resolved to Marry The
Qaudroon.
The Fact of Color in Her Blood Is Not
a Deterrent.
When William Adams, a tall,
fine-looking white youth,
was
seen at the Eureka foundry at Richmond and Harriet streets
Tuesday
by a Times-Star reporter in regard to his coming wedding, he said: “I
love
little Lizzie Sulser, and the fact that she has negro blood in her
veins
isn’t going to keep me from wedding her. I am going to marry her
Wednesday morning at 9 o”clock. I am 21 and she is 18, and it’s
not
against the Ohio laws for us to marry. I am sorry that my folks
object,
but I love this girl, and my mind is made up. I’m going to marry
her.”
____________
RATHER SEE HIM DEAD THAN TO MARRY THE GIRL
Mother of Adams Says She is Broken Hearted.
His gray-haired mother with the
tears rolling down
her
cheeks, talked of her boy Tuesday morning. “We shall move away
from
here,” she wept. “I have cried and cried till the tears won’t come any
more. I can’t bear the thought of my boy marrying a colored girl.
We are going to sell out and go somewhere where no one knows us.
I sent Willie word that he has broken his father’s heart and
mine.
I sent the girl word I’d do something she wouldn’t like if she married
Willie. I’m afraid I’ll just go madlike if I think about the
thing
much longer. I wish that Willie had killed himself that time he
tried
to kill the girl and himself. I’d rather attend his funeral than
have him marry this girl. Oh, the disgrace of a disinherited son
married to a colored girl.”
At the Sulser home preparations for the wedding are
being
made by the quadroon.“I love Willie,” she says, simply, “and he
loves
me.
If his mother objects why didn’t she object when he first came to see
me
instead of waiting till we fell in love?”
All the wedding outfit of the colored girl
consisting
of several pretty white tresses is made. “We hope to marry
Wednesday,”
she said. “We are both Catholics and will first be married by a
squire
and then, by a priest.” The girl has big dark eyes.
She has a colored brother, Adams has a brother,
Walter,
and a sister living on Fifth street, Dayton, Ky. The little
quadroon
says she is eighteen.
___________
MOTHER CALLED AT HOME OF THE QUADROON GIRL.
Young Man Threatened to Kill Himself
Bitterly they reproached the
youth. He went
down
to the little quadroon’s home and begged her, so she says, to wed
him.
The boy’s mother had been to see the quadroon and had pleaded with her
to refuse. The girl says she told him of his mother’s
objections.
He drew a revolver and said that he would kill himself. “I don’t
care to live it I can’t have you,” he said. The mother of the
girl,
Mrs. Sulser, grabbed the revolver away from Adams. Then Adams
went
to Somerset, KY. To try to begin life over and forget his made
love.
But he soon returned, and last Saturday night the final scene with his
parents came. Mr. Andrew Adams told his son that if he married
the
quadroon he would be disinherited. “I love Lizzie, and I’m going
to marry her,” replied the boy.
“If you are going to marry her, leave my house; if
not,
you can stay,” said the father. Dramatically.
William Adams left his father’s house forever.
click image for full view
Lizzie
Sulser,
Quadroon whose coming
marriage to William Adams, who is white, has broken his mother's heart.
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