"That man Gunther promised to marry me," she said, lowering her voice.
"He sent me out to steal and when I wouldn't do it he used to beat me
when I came home. Do you wonder I'm what I am?"
There was a burst of what might have been tears. Her face was buried
and her figure shook with sobs. But in five seconds the dimpled face
appeared again, dry eyed, and at a remark on the moment she turned
toward her auditors, winking an eyelid slyly.
"Fainting Bertha" Lebecke has almost lost consecutive track of the
asylums and prisons in which she has been locked.
From this Glenwood home for the feebleminded she was released. She
got into trouble again and was sent to the Clarinda State Hospital
for the Insane. Here, in the words of the superintendent, she was
looked upon as a case of "moral imbecility, with some maniacal
complications." Here an operation was performed, and, in the opinion
of the superintendent, she was eligible to discharge soon afterwards
as improved.
St. Bernard's Asylum at Council Bluffs cared for her for a time, but
she succeeded in escaping from it and was not returned.
In Asylum No. 3 at Nevada, Mo., in spite of the close watch kept upon
her, "Fainting Bertha" escaped several times, but was caught soon
after and returned to the institution. On December 21, 1901, she was
discharged as not insane and returned to Omaha, where she had lived
for a time. Here Bertha remained about two years, acting as a maid
of all work in households. Her experience in Chicago and Illinois is
stranger than any fiction.