WANTED TO KEEP HER Father Never Allowed His Daughter to Marry Kalamazoo, Mich. May 7, 1900 - Laura Belle Sabastine Richardson, who confesses that she is a maiden of 36 summers, has traveled from Odessa, Mo. (Lafayette County), 600 miles away, to meet Deroy L. Hill, whom she expects to marry. Hill is 40. Miss Richardson was made ill by the excitement of her journey, which resembled a one-sided elopement, and she is resting in the home of Hill's sister, Mrs. Hattie Scott. If she be not disappointed in the man she came to meet, but, whom she never knew before, the marriage may be celebrated today. She tells this story: "My father lives on a farm 12 miles from Odessa. He never allowed me to have any callers, and I never had a chance to get married, although I wanted to. "I invested $5 with a matrimonial bureau in St. Louis, and this was to get me seven chances to marry. One of the chances was Mr. Hill, who had applied to the same bureau. I took a fancy to him, and began to correspond with him in February. We wrote several letters back and forth, and finally I promised to many him. I had planned once before to come to Kalamazoo and meet him, but father found it out and stopped me. Finally I had to slip away. I got to Odessa by myself, boarded a train and came on to Kalmazoo alone." Miss Richardson's coming at this time was a surprise to Hil. She is a trim woman, black-haired, black-eyed, dresses neatley, and is rather good looking. Hill is a carpenter. (The Evening News Sault Ste. Marie, Chippewa Co. Michigan May 7, 1903)