Hobo Girl in McLean County Jail

On this date 100 years ago a young woman threw herself upon the mercy of the County Sheriff for a place to stay. Gertie St. Leece was just 18 years old, but after her parents were divorced and remarried, she had no home. She had spent time in the Home of the Good Shepherd, a reform school reportedly, and was looking to go back there for a bed, on a voluntary basis. She had been in Clinton the previous month and had married a chauffeur (a truck driver) but they had decided they did not suit each other and she left.

The reporter notes that she is a good looking girl, but that you can tell by looking at her and listening to her voice that she has been "around." She had travelled to Bloomington on a freight car and had caught a cold and needed a place to get over her cold.

She is just another example of the fate of the children discarded by society either through divorce or poverty.