Marie was born in a Chicago slum in 1884. Her mother, half French and half German, was endowed with cruelty truly international. Her father was a drunken machinist of German extraction, generally out of a job. Both the parents beat the little girl, the mother because she was cruel, the father because he was a beast. Her earliest memories are connected with the smoky streets of the West Side. The smell of the Stock Yards suggests her youth to her, as the smell of walnuts brings back to the more fortunate country man the rich beauty of a natural childhood.
