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Children Of Absconding Bank Receiver Wonder if Santa is Really Coming
Three little tots in Parsons are wondering today whether or not Santa Claus will forget them this year. For weeks they have been looking forward to the coming of old St. Nick, but their hopes were shattered by the disappearance of their father, R. H. McElwain, absconding assistant receiver of the First National Bank at Lenapah, Okla.
Their mother, almost in destitute circumstances, is comforting them, hoping that the tide of affairs will turn for the better and that her children will not be disappointed this Christmas.
Fate has been cruel to Mrs. McElwain. Caring for a baby less than nine months old and unable to seek employment, she is wondering what will become of the little family.
The little mother cherished hopes of a happy Christmas. Why should it not be? she thought. Her husband, an assistant receiver of the Lenapah bank, was drawing a sum on which the family could comfortably live and everything appeared rosy.
But Dec. 14 brought a sudden turn of affairs. The shocking news of her husband's disappearance with another woman, and with $1,500 of the bank's funds, reached her.
It was too much for her. She could not understand it, she told the Sun today. "My husband has always been kind to me and I cannot understand what made him do such a thing."
"We were living happily," she continued. "Although away from home during the week, he always returned on Saturday night, spending a happy weekend with his family and returning to his duties at Lenapah each Monday morning."
Mrs. McElwain could shed no light on the mystery. She knows nothing of his whereabouts. He did not confide to me any information concerning shortage, she said.
And while a nation-wide search is being instituted for their daddy, the prospects for the coming of Santa Claus appears very gloomy for the three little McElwain tots.