[Indexed: (Murphy case), “A Tramp Mother. – She Crossed The Continent On A Brakebeam. – Beat Her Way from West Virginia to Los Angeles to Recover Her Abducted Baby. – Disguised as a Man She Succeeded In Concealing Her Sex Till She Reached Barstow. – The Little Girl Stolen by Her Husband and Placed in a Foundling Asylum – She is Here to Find Her Child.” The Los Angeles Times (Ca.), Sep. 8, 1895]

It has been often said that a mother will go through fire to save her offspring, and this saying has, no doubt, been oft exemplified, but Mrs. Mary Murphy perhaps breaks the record for daring deeds accomplished for love of her child. Mrs. Murphy (who, by the way, has resumed her maiden name, Mary Fudge,) had performed a no less daring feet accomplished for love of her child, Mrs. Murphy (who, by the way, has resumed her maiden, Mary Fudge.) has performed a no less daring feat than to cross the continent on a brakebeam to recover her precious little one.

The story of Mrs. Murphy’s adventure is an interesting one, and not devoid of pathos as well as romance. She is a comely and intelligent woman, and, disguised as a man and accompanied by her fifteen-year-old brother, left her home in West Virginia July 26 last, arriving in Los Angeles at 9:55 o’clock yesterday morning. There is nothing remarkable about this, save the manner in which the journey was accomplished.

To get at the facts that prompted the hazardous trip, it is necessary to go back several years. Mary Fudge was a West Virginia girl who married a man named Murphy. A little girl was born to them, and, when the child was about a year old, they emigrated to California, where they resided about three years, until last April, when her husband persuaded her to remove to West Virginia, he accompanying her and the little girl. A month or two later, she alleges, he not only basely deserted her, but also stole her baby. She says she paid a detective $400, nearly all the money she had, to locate her husband and recover the child. The detective learned that Murphy came to Los Angeles, where he put the little one in a charitable institution, then proceeded to Portland, Or.

The detective considered his work done when he had located the child, and as she scarcely any money left, she was at a loss how to recover her daring. A mother’s love, however, knows no obstacle, so she conceived the bold plan of beating her way to California. She first, however, took the protection to secure a divorce from her husband and get an order for the custody of the child.

Then she expressed her trunk to Los Angeles at a cost of $15, after which she had about $13 left to defray the expense of the journey of herself and young brother, whom she persuaded to go with her. She cut her hair short, donned a rough man’s suit and a little traveling cap and started out, carrying no baggage, except her baby’s picture, a lead pencil and a pad of writing paper done up in a handkerchief.