The little town of Dobbinsville, snugly tucked away in the peaceful folds of the far-famed Ozark hills, is coming into its share of publicity.  There has lived for many years in the vicinity of this village a substantial farmer by the name of Gramps.  Until a couple of days ago Gramps was supposed to have been dead and buried.  In fact, a tombstone in the churchyard near the Gramps homestead plainly states that Gramps is dead.  Though tombstones sometimes say, “They have gone to rest,” the truth is otherwise and Gramps has turned up very much alive.  According to an officer interviewed by a Post correspondent yesterday, Gramp’s story is somewhat on this wise: 

A little over a year ago it became known in the neighborhood of Dobbinsville that Gramps, who for years had been a well-to-do farmer and a diligent deacon in a local church, was becoming involved in financial embarrassment.  In order to save himself from bankruptcy, the Deacon, according to his own confession, resorted to very unusual means.  Gramps carried heavy life insurance.  About thirteen months ago he burned his barn and feigned to have burned with it.  While his neighbors were at the church one Sunday he went into his big barn and after depositing in a pasteboard box his false teeth, his watch, his pocket-knife, and some pieces of silver coin, he placed the box in the manger and lighted the hay in the mow with a match.  After making sure that the fire was in good way, he jumped from a window in the barn and ran, without detection, to his house and hid himself in the attic.  Neighbors, missing Gramps, made a diligent search for him which resulted only in finding the molten remains of the pocket knife and other articles in the ash-heap where the barn was burned.  Amid much mourning loving hands gathered ashes from the tragical spot and tenderly laid them in an expensive casket.  The next day at the funeral in the parlor of the Gramps home, a minister from St. Louis delivered an empassioned eulogy, extolling the manifold excellencies of the honored dead (?).  Through an open stairway door Gramps heard the eloquent words of the clergyman and the heart-rending sobs of his own wife and children.

After seeing his funeral done up in proper style, Gramps went to Colorado, where for a year, going under an assumed name, he conducted a Sunday School and took active part in other religious enterprises.  Through the cooperation of his wife, who remained on the homestead at Dobbinsville, he came into possession of $10,000 from an insurance company in New York City.  At the end of a year he planned for his wife to join him in Colorado, where, according to his statement, they were to begin life anew.  But their plans were upset when the Deacon sent his wife a check signed with his assumed name, which name consisted of the first two words of his real name.  Gramps and his wife are both in jail, where they await the action of the court and where they have a splendid opportunity to meditate upon the interesting happenings of the past year.  Whether or not Mrs. Gramps was an accomplice has not yet developed.