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2 JHEOGDENjTANDARD-EXAMlNER SUNDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 24, 1920.
iMiss Barney "Knew the Right Man
Would Come Along in Time," and
After 72 Years or More of Patient
Hopefulness She Married
a Centenarian
pR ANDREW MALCOLM MORRISON
I J It one hundred years oid. and LlvJ
interesting American centenarian
H has recently taken a bride in l.os An
geles, California.
Miss Mary Augusta Barney, the blush
ing bride, gave her age. on the marriage
record as at least seventy-two. And then
H she
H "I really do not know Ju.ct how old 1 am
H I stopped thinking about my age so long
ago that I have forgotten the milestones
of the years."
I Whatever is the exart age of the new
Mrs. Morrison, she is certainly no silly,
giggling young thing Her mature years
H of maidenhood hare brought her to a very
B' practical, if unromantic, view of matl-
H mony. When asked if she thought that
fl marriage at her time of life would be likely
V to promise happiness, she replied:
H "Oh' I never believed in early mar-
-, , rlages."
And the bride showed her cheerful, pa
h tient philosophy of life, remarking.
H "Being an old maid never bothered me
any.' I knew the right man would come
along in time."
1 Miss Barney WSJ entirely right a man
didTcome along at last, after seventy-two
years or more.
H "But so many year of your allotted span
of life," the reporter ventured, "have been
lost that might have established you with
H a happy home and grown up children, and
fl perhaps grandchildren or do you and Dr.
Morrison expect that even now you will be
blessed by"
I v"It is ridiculous and insulting." the bride
Interrupted, "for people to come to us
about raising a family. A man asked me
to-ay what I thought about g
I and I ordered him out of the house!"
"Would you consider yur courtship and
I marriage with your hnudr M
band to be what the novelists call a 'ro
I mance'?" the reporter a
"I do not believe In all fhls silly twaddle
H about romance. Marriage Is a partnership,
as I view it. We have entered into a cove
nant because the doctor and 1 have many
1 interests and tastes in common and we
can be mutually helpful to each other.
This is a sufficient ground for marriage
I without the nonsense of romantic unreal
"After looking back over the rather wide
expanse of years ar.d considering ih mat
rimonial experiences of your friend; and
I relatives", do you consider that 'love
matches' are not so durable as the less
romantic marriages like your own?" the
reporter asked
I "Young man," said the lri'ie, fixing her
j, saze sternly upon the reporter, who had
evidently awakened by this last question
a train of thought in hex mind, 'a
woman who dresses herself as most women
do to-day. with disgracefully short skirts
and immodestly low bodies and scantiness
of material that displays every curve,
should not resent whntever insult a man
might see fit to give her. It Is her dress
ing that arouses the state of mind which
would give utterance to such thoughts, and
the way she flaunts herself lead? him to
fl believe that she is looking and longing for
Just such advances as he makes.
"Seriou- as is the menace to morals
there is still a graver danger to the health
of the race In the way women dress them
spires. There Is nothing that a woman
could do whlrh so quickly and certainly
undermines her own health and the vitality
of her offspring as the wearing of high
French heels. The unnatural tilt at which
ehe must walk throws nil of the organs of
her body out of their true position, and It
is this which makes her tiro so much more
easily than her mother or grandmother did
under the same amount of exercise or
work. Women nowadays laugh at the little
three-cornered shawls that their grand
mothers wore, but those little shawls were.
one of the long-life preservers. They kept
f the nerve centres at the back of the neck
warm and protected the exposed lung area
in the back from sudden chills that coie
when the vitality (s a little lowered.
"I feel young," Mr? Morrison continued.
"and I have kept young by forgetting about
how old I am. When people begin at
j twenty to think 'I must look and art and
feel such a way at forty and at fifty and
at seventy' they give themselves the sub
conscious suggestion that invariably works
out the very conditions t y h i w imagined
Ho themselves, and then they been to fear
and to fight old age, which brings ll on
I faster than ever.
I "Women of to-day are burning their livej
out in dissipation. They are dial Ipallng
' their energies, chasing tho rainbow of
I pleasure and frottlng over the rule of the
tyrant Fashion which they themselves
have created.
"1 hare a great deal to do in the world
yet and I expect to live to an advanced
I age. I do not feel any older than when I
was twenty. 1 have never been married
before, but Dr. Morrison Id not my first
lover. I have been interested in several
men in my life, but none who had the
mental attainments and who were at con
genial In every way as Dr. Morrison la.
"There is such a strong telepathic com
munication between the doctor and myself
that I have had mental pictures of him
thrown on my wnll at nisht when I woulri
be alone and thinking of him Once I sav
him 111 and in need of attention, and I lm
mediately went to him and found him in
Just the condition that the clairvoyant
vision depicted.
"My parents and grandparents all lived
to be very old. I don t know their exact
age. but my grandmothers on both my
mother's and ray father's side reached the
age of ninety This lifo to me Is simply
like a day's span in which there is so much
to he done, and I feel sure I will not p.iss
Into some other existence until I have com
pleted the work I have mapped out for me
here. I am now engaged In helping my
husband write his new book on pan
therapy. Which we both feel sure is going
to revolutionise the. practhe of medicine
We have both studied all the dlfferem
schools of medicine and have culled tht
good from each and are putting it into
definite form In this voluniu."
Dr. Morrison, tho hundred-year-old super
centenarian, unfolded hi philosophy of
life with a merry twinkle In his eyes
"There really Is no such thing as dying,"
the happy bridegroom asserted. "Men let
their minds .stagnate and this causes the
lupcuanism oi tnelr bodies to
rust. When the wheels we co!l
lungs, liver and heart become
too rusty to function and co-ordl
nate the machiuo we call tht
body becomes unfit for use It i?
then that the mind casts it aside
and goes through the tedious
process of getting another body.
Whether it goes on and assumes
a celestial body or whether it
returns and takes tip again an
other terrestrial body 1 am not '
prepared to say, but I know this,
from the vibservatlon of the law
of consenatlou of energy, man
would s:ve an enormous amount
of energy and an incalculable !
amount oi time- for the life of
the race if he would conserve
and preserve the body he al- I
ready has
"I have kept my mind active
and alert through speaklug a
number of different languages.
To remember the vocabularies
of tlreek, Latin. Hebrew and
Sanskrit, and to keep separate
in the mind the many similar,
but not quite Identical, idioms of
French Italian and Spanish,
keep the mind polished like a
warrior's sword
"Where the indolent average
man lets his mind and bod-v rust
out. the successful business or
professional man allows too nar
row specializing to eat into his
mainsprings like an acid My
profession ts medicine, but that
has not prevented me making a
study of music, nor have I al
lowed it to interfere with my
research iuto occult sciences
astronomy and metaphysics
"Having a number of differ, nt
Interests keeps the mind poised
and balanced it also prevents
insanity and aids digestion by
allowing the organs to act auto
matically, which they do not do
when tho mind Is concentrated
on them in fear or worn- over
what has been eaton.
"One of the very best wavs to
prolong life is to find something
to laugh at every day. Certain
ly this is not difficult in Los
Angeles. If a man could walk
up Broadway from First to
Kighth street without seeing
something in every block to
make him smile. I would suggest
that he needed the services oi
either an alienist or an oculist
Why, if a man cannot find anvthing
else to laugh at let him laugh at bis wife's
temper; most of us could find a perennial
source of mirth in this. Although this Is ,
my fourth marriage I have lived most of
my one hundred years in single blessed
ness. My first wife only lived two years
and my second wife ono year. I have
spent much of my life in travel and do not
know whether or not I have any living
children.
"I have made it a habit of my life not
to get mad easily. I entertain kind
thoughts toward my fellow men, I cat
plain, nutritious food and try to select a
balanced diet without too much starch or
too much protein at one meal, but I have
never made a fad or a fetich of my food.
I think most people eat too much and
sleep too much. I often read or write until
quite late at night and then rise early in
the morning, if l feel tho need of -b
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A Sixteenth Century Royal Child Marriage for "Reasons of State' V
Painted by J. A. Mitchell.
the next day I take a short nap In the
afternoon.
"As well and strong as I feel to-day. I do
not see any reason why I may not live at
least fifty years more. I come of a long
lived race. Ioth of my parents lived to
be over eighty.
"I have known the present Mrs. Morri
son a reat many years. She attended the
T'nlverslty of Kansas, of which I was pres
ident, and there we became mutually at
tached to each other. Dut wo bad known
each other through correspondence long
before that. It Is the mating of the mind
that unites people. Ht Interests were
identical with mine. She Is a skilled
musician and teacher of music, she has
practised medicine for many years, and
she has studied deeply Into psychic phe
nomena. Our mutual knowledge of these
if' I" tre i
things has established a telepathic com
munication between us that few could un
derstand "
History records plenty of youthful mar
riages, but not many matrimonial ventures
of centenarians. In the fifteenth and six
teenth centuries there were marriages of
royal children for reasons of state, and the
painting on this pa','e by the artist, J. A.
Mitchell, pictures one of thm. The shock
lug child-bride custom of India is, of course,
well known and prevails at the present day.
The photograph reproduced ou this page
shows a thlrty-fl ve-year-old husband and bis
seven-year-old wife.
Human experience ha.s .shown that mar
riages within a certain range of age are
the best for reusons which are manifest
to everybody. In most civilized countries
in modern times an age limit is fixed by
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A Child Bride of India the Man Is
Thirty-five Years Old and the Little
One Eeside Him Is His Wife, Seven
Years of Age.
iaw, below which It is not only improper
but unlawful for marriage. There is no
law fixing the other extreme age beyond
which matrimonial contract;; are forbidden.
Hut it often happens that the courts are
called upon to intervene where superan
nuated lovers are about to become bride
or grooms. As a rule, the objecth n Is
made and the courts are called upou.tn hv
Dr. Andrew M. Morrison,
the One-Hundred-Year-Old
Bridegroom, and His Bride, ,
Who Was Miss Mary Aug
usta Barney.
terfere with the matrimonial Ha
plans because of property rea- m&k
sons. In many cases It is alleged Hm
that tho elderly sweetheart is BEH
mentally Incompetent or Is being Kflfr
victimized by somebody who Is rwBvjjP.
trying to wheedle the superan- f ?l m
minted but wealthy lover Into a p !'!
match for sordid reasons. This. f if f Jap
of course, is not the case In the InK
present instance. While Doctor KMK
Morrison Is a man of some dls- iJff's'
Unction In bis pi-ofcs!on and ifil - w
possessed of knple means, no
aspersions can bo cast upon his
romance. If i?n(c'
Of course, the Old Testament BiHr
contains a number of examples
of centenarians and over taking BPS-Jj ..
to themselves wives. In most of I3f '
these cases it must be said that I
tho wive, were usually much r H
younger than the husbands. HBk
There iB no Biblical record of a W
woman becoming a bride when
over the allotted span of three- Ea-ffV
score years and ten. On the other
hand there Is a very Interesting
Incident of Abraham and Sarah,
who In extreme old age were RSri '
blessed with offspring. EjB&yir
A very renowned scientist has IldS'TV'
said that time has nothing what- J
ever to do with youth, middle ago, I
or old age. HSm -jx'
The old adage is, that a man Ls as young
as he fnuls and a woman as old as she Ittl
looks. The Increasing tendency of mod- Kr5'''
ern times Is toward later marriages, aocl- lt
ologlsts have recently pointed out. J
History' shows thai child marriages aa tmE'
not very successful or desirable It will be P"
interesting to see how the centenarian II jL
marriage of Dr Morrison and his bride Mit
turns out I