Beck, Margaret - insane - Montgomery InGenWeb Project

For some time a woman by the name of Margaret Beck has been staying in different places in this city and at five a.m. Saturday was found on the street with her clothing torn into shreds, her feet and head bare, violently insane. She was unknown to the men who found her, but was taken to the county jail and locked in a cell. Saturday morning Jere Reddenbaugh who lives on the Danville Road came to the city and tells the following story.  Mrs Beck had been stopping at his house for the past week and yesterday the family noticed that she was, as they supposed, slightly off of her mental balance and it ended in her getting up out of bed and wandering away.  Her past history obtained from Mr. Edwards of the Edwards House can be summed up as following:  Mrs. Beck has been twice married. She was raised at Lebanon her maiden name being Pratt. She married a man named Dotson who deserted her and died soon afterward.  Her next matrimonial venture was with a man named Beck, also a resident of Lebanon.  Her family opposed the marriage on the ground that Beck was a drinking character and rather rough withal. She would not listen and the result has been  years of misery ending with a separation.  A complaint for divorce pending in the Boone Circuit Court filed by her, was dismissed on account of her not being able to attend the trial. She came to this city some months since and has wandered aimlessly about with no settled place of abode, brooding over her troubles until her mind gave way. She claims that she had no home and no friends, that even her mother, now a resident of Jamestown, refused to allow her to stay at home. It is a sad case. An inquest of insanity will be held Monday. - kbz - so sad