The Evening World

RICH MAN'S WIFE ADMITS ALLIANCE WITH BANK ROBBER
Mrs. Sterry Tells on Witness Stand Friendship for Sherwood, Norwalk Defaulter.
VISITS HIM IN PRISON
Story Brought Out on Cross-Examination By Husband's Lawyer in Separation Suit.

Amazing admissions of her friendship for Oliver T. Sherwood, the defaulting cashier of a Norwalk (Conn.) savings bank, who was arrested in Canada and is now serving a term in prison, were made to-day on the witness stand before Justice Newburger in the Supreme Court when Mrs. Elizabeth Stivers Sterry was cross-examined in her suit for separation from her millionaire husband, James W. Sterry, member of the wholesale drug firm of Weaver & Sterry.

Mrs. Sterry, tall, handsome and of middle age, wearing a sealskin coat and an immense picture hat with purple and red gladioli, calmly revealed her acquaintance with the bank wrecker who stole several hundred thousand dollars. She admitted she had been Sherwood's "manager" at several millinery establishments the embezzler had conducted in Manhattan and that she had visited him at the Wethersfield prison since he was sent there. She had knowledge of his flight to Canada, but denied that she went with him.

FORCED TO ADMIT BRINGING Suit against Employer.

Mrs. Sterry admitted that under the name of "Elizabeth A. Sargeant" she had instituted suit against Paul G. Bonwit of the firm of Bonwit Teller & Co. for $10,000 damages, charging that the merchant had beaten her while she was employed as a model in the merchant's establishment. The suit never came to trial and was discontinued, although Mrs. Sterry identified her signature to the sworn complaint, which was produced in court by Hyacinthe Ringrose, her husband's lawyer.

Mrs. Sterry was formerly the wife of Alfred J. Rennie, a Chicago merchant, from whom she was divorced. She is the daughter of Gen. A. J. Stivers of Texas, a civil war veteran. She was married to Sterry on April 23, 1911, in Chicago. George Edward Sterry Jr., who shot and killed his father in the latter's downtown drug store and then committed suicide, was Mr. Sterry's brother.

Mrs. Sterry lived with the young drug merchant until Sept. 1, 1911, when they parted. Mrs. Sterry then began an action for a separation, charging Sterry with drunkenness and cruelty.

Parted From First Husband Two months after marriage.

Mrs. Sterry said she was born in Texas, and was married to Mr. Rennie in New York in 1894. Two months later they parted, and Rennie went to Chicago, where a divorce was obtained. Mrs. Sterry claiming that she was never served in the action. She has a child, sixteen years old, as a result of her union with Rennie.

"When did you first hear that your husband had divorced you?" the lawyer asked.

"Oh, several months later—two years, I think—when some friends told me of it."

In explaining her troubles with Sterry, Mrs. Sterry objected to a physician who allowed Sterry to go out for walks that enabled her husband to obtain liquor. A quarrel resulted and during the spat Sterry called her names. These names she wrote on a piece of paper and handed to the court. She said that she slapped Sterry's face until he got down on his knees and apologized.

"I warned him not to repeat the words," she added, turning to Justice Newburger.

"That is about the only way you can treat a man of that character."

After the quarrel the Sterrys parted. Mrs. Sterry is receiving $25 a week alimony.

MILLIONAIRE'S WIFE WHO ADMITS FRIENDSHIP FOR CONVICTED BANKER.