[Indexed as: (Koveleff case), “Found a Pocketbook and His Lost Daughter – Little Girl Who Was Kidnaped by Gypsies Restored to Her Parents by What Seemed a Miracle – Foster Parent Given Rich Reward,” The Evening Telegram (Fort Worth, Tx.), Jan. 16, 1905]

ST. PETERSBURG Jan 15 – That a father who had mourned for seven years a kidnapped child should find her through picking up, in a city where he was visiting, a pocketbook belonging to the man whose hands his daughter had passed, would be descried as impossible were it used as a plot in a piece of fiction.

Yet in that very incident lies the restoration to her father and mother of little Helen Koveleff, daughter of a Russian army officer. All Russia is excited over the case.

Seven years ago Col. Koveleff, a wealthy landowner was living with his wife and 4-year-old daughter Helen on his estate at Kamentz, in the province of Pskoff. One day one of his estate at Kamentz, in the province at Pskoff. One day one of the colonel’s servants became involved in a violent quarrel with his wife, a domestic in the colonel’s household, and terminated a dispute by throwing a dagger at her. The wife dodged the weapon, which missed her. The wife dodged the weapon, which missed her, but struck Helen, who happened to be running past. The dagger wounded the child’s ear, inflicting a permanent scar.

A few months later the little girl disappeared, and it was believed that she had been kidnapped by a band of gypsies who had passed through Kamenetz. All the efforts of the parents to recover the child were unsuccessful.

In 1897 a shopkeeper in Odessa, named Breitmann, who kept a small fruit store, saw a little girl crying bitterly in front of his house. He took her to his wife and between them they ascertained, after much questioning, that the little girl had been sent out to beg and had been sent out to beg and had lost her way. The child was unable to give them much information about herself but they understood that she had formerly lived in a beautiful home, and that latterly she had been wandering up and down the country with a troop of gypsies, whom she had helped to support by begging.

As Breitmann and its wife had no children of their own, they took the little girl and brought her up as though she had been their daughter. She was happy in the humble home of the Odesso fruit dealer.

A week or two ago Col. Koveloff, with his wife, happened to be visiting Odessa and picked up a pocketbook in the street. He informed the police of his discovery and kept the pocketbook. In the course of the day, Breitmann, the fruit dealer, modified the police that he had lost a pocketbook and the police gave him the address of Col. Koveloff. As the pocketbook contained no money and was of no particular value, Breitmann did not go himself to fetch it, but sent his adopted daughter.

Madame Koveleff took a strange fancy to the little girl and asked her all sorts of questions about herself and her relatives. The girl related that she did not know her own father and mother, and that she was being brought up by adopted parents. She had been kidnapped and taken away from home, she said, by a wicked woman who had been given her the name of Mary. Madame Koveleff was greatly agitated by the little girl’s story. She sprang up, ran toward her and lifter the hair which covered the left ear. After the glance the woman shrieked and fainted, for she had seen on the ear the scar which told her that she had found her lost daughter. Apart from this scar, the girl wore a little locket round her neck in which the date of her birth was engraved. Helen Koveloff was taken home in triumph, and happiness now reigns in a reunited family.

Col. Koveloff gave Brietmann $5000, besides a house on his estate and a farm of several hundred acres, which he can occupy free of rent during his lifetime.

NOTE

The article is ambiguous in regard to its use of the term “gypsy.” It is possible that the case involved an itinerant (Mary), who was not actually a gypsy. The term gypsy has often used as a generic term of reference for any itinerant.