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Ida Chamness writings on travel and religion, 1927-1938
Page 5
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-5- be paid off." On Ninth month 1st, 1936, I with my daughters, Ina and Jennie, visited him at the penitentiary for the first time. I told John this language was given to me from God for him: "Can a mother forget her infant child? tho she may, yet will I never leave nor forsake thee." He thanked me. After this we wrote to him frequently and visited him several times, and we did all in our power to have his sentence commuted from death to life imprisonment. We visited, and wrote to Governor Clyde Herring, who readilly entered into feeling with our concern and promised to do all he could to help. We felt all the time that the appeal to the Supreme Court stood in the way of our work for John, and we did not know John had the power to cut the appeal off until so near the time for Governor Herring to be out of office, that through the uncalled for interference of two parties, from having the appeal cut off which was already nearly completed, it became too late for Governor Herring to do what he had begun for John. We also appealed to his successor Nelson Kraschel, but the latter finally decided not to intervene. John Mercer wrote 19 days previous to his death: "We know these things (Capitol Punishment) are not the will of God, but the will of man, to whom it seems alright." There were at this time five men in the death row at Fort Madison, all under sentence of death, and we endeavored to minister to them all.
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-5- be paid off." On Ninth month 1st, 1936, I with my daughters, Ina and Jennie, visited him at the penitentiary for the first time. I told John this language was given to me from God for him: "Can a mother forget her infant child? tho she may, yet will I never leave nor forsake thee." He thanked me. After this we wrote to him frequently and visited him several times, and we did all in our power to have his sentence commuted from death to life imprisonment. We visited, and wrote to Governor Clyde Herring, who readilly entered into feeling with our concern and promised to do all he could to help. We felt all the time that the appeal to the Supreme Court stood in the way of our work for John, and we did not know John had the power to cut the appeal off until so near the time for Governor Herring to be out of office, that through the uncalled for interference of two parties, from having the appeal cut off which was already nearly completed, it became too late for Governor Herring to do what he had begun for John. We also appealed to his successor Nelson Kraschel, but the latter finally decided not to intervene. John Mercer wrote 19 days previous to his death: "We know these things (Capitol Punishment) are not the will of God, but the will of man, to whom it seems alright." There were at this time five men in the death row at Fort Madison, all under sentence of death, and we endeavored to minister to them all.
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