THE FREEPORT JOURNAL STANDARD

Freeport, Illinois, U.S.A.

28 December 1922

(page 7)

MODEL'S ROMANCE ENDS IN DIVORCE COURT.

MAIZIE MITCHELL RYERSON.

DETROIT.—Even in Detroit an artist’s model can have adventures that rival those of Greenwich Village in New York or the Latin Quarter of Paris.

The career of Mazie Mitchell Ryerson proves it.

Maizie’s romance really began when she ran away from her puritanical parents in Canada to become a stage dancer. This happened when she was only 15.

Eighteen found her in Detroit, posing for artists. In a studio she met Albert W. Ryerson, a youthfully groomed man of 51, who was introduced to her as a well-to-do patron of the arts.

Ryerson took an immediate interest in the little dancer and model.

“It was purely a fatherly interest,” says Mazie, “at least I thought so. And when he asked me to go to live in his apartment as his ward, I readily agreed and thought myself the most fortunate of girls.”

Mazie describes the apartment as an exotically furnished suite in an office building, where turbaned servants of a Hindu cast of countenance trod soft oriental rugs and lighted incense lamps.

“I had lived there only two months,” she says, “when Mr. Ryerson proposed marriage. He argued that our arrangement would cause folks to talk. But I protested I wasn’t in love with him.

“Then he suggested we be married for a 30-day trial and that if he hadn’t taught me to love him by the end of that period, I would be free to leave him.”

The marriage took place in the fall. It lasted 29 days. Then Maizie left her benefactor, complaining of his ideas of love and love rites.

She said she believed Ryerson had formulated these ideas while connected with a strange sect order. Ryerson had headed a book concern [Equinox Vol. III, No. 1] which issued a volume setting forth this cult’s precepts.

Many copies of the book were found on the concern’s shelves when receivers took over the property.

Maizie promises to tell all about Ryerson’s love doctrines when her suit for divorce comes up for trial.

Ryerson denies all her charges.

He says he is a victim of ingratitude and asserts when he tells his story in court he can sustain his good name.