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Colcord, Joanna C.

"Broken Homes A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment"



But when all is said and done, there are no unbreakable rules about
treatment. A form of treatment is sometimes to do nothing at all.
Charles Morgan, a middle-aged machinist with a wife, a comfortable
home, and seven children (the two eldest grown), picked up his tools
and disappeared, after a quarrel over his wife's extravagance. He
had been earning $50 a week in a shop where he had worked for
eighteen years and he would not endure having his wages garnisheed
for debt.
An experienced case worker to whom furious Mrs. Morgan made her
complaint, decided, after studying Mr. Morgan's record, that he
ought not to be prosecuted, and refused to be party to it. As he was
a man of domestic habits, search was made in a nearby city where he
had relatives. He was easily traced. Mr. Morgan was both proud and
reticent, so the case worker made no attempt to approach him, but
told the woman she must devise some way to get him back, preferably
to write him and say she was sorry. This she refused to do and on
her own responsibility adopted the clumsy device of wiring him that
a favorite child was sick. This brought him "on the run," and, being
back, he stayed.


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