The Wichita Daily Eagle

A reporter for the Eagle called on Mrs. Frank Pratt yesterday at her brother's house on East Central avenue to gain some history of Frank Pratt that would explain some of the incidents which seems to put him in the very places where Holmes attracted attention.

Mrs. Frank Pratt put on her leghorn hat and sat in a rocking chair in front of the Coleman residence under the shade of a large cottonwood tree when the reporter asked to see her.

Mrs. Pratt is a small slender woman and a good deal more than ordinarily intelligent. Whenever anything is said that seems to connect her husband with the Holmes affair her hazel eyes flash resentment and she is ready to defend him.

She admits that her husband has used her badly but he could never find in his heart to commit a crime like those of which Holmes is accused.

The reporter wanted Mrs. Pratt to give a short history of her husband, but she would not consent until it was suggested that many people now believe that Holmes and Frank Pratt were one and the same person and that they might conclude that she is Minnie Williams.

Since the story was started in Philadelphia that Holmes was Pratt Mrs. Pratt has read a good deal about the case and she states positively that her husband is not in prison but is at this very minute in business.

When the bright little woman was induced to relate something of her husband's she said:

"My maiden name was Ada Coleman and I was raised in Springfield, Ill. I went to school there and when I got through I went down to St. Louis. That was in 1882.

"Shortly after I went there I met Frank Pratt, who was at that time collector for the St. Louis Compress company.

"Frank was then 26 years old and I was 21. He is now 39 years old but he looks much younger than that. I met him in the spring of 1882 and the following December we were married at Kirkwood, Mo.

Frank had worked for the St. Louis Compress company ever since he was 14 years old and he finally became one of the officers.

"His father was a prominent cotton dealer who died in Memphis when Frank was 12 years old. He had an insurance on his life and Frank got $5,000; his share after he became of age.