From Virginia Louise (Kuhl) Knutsen <vknutsen@atcnet.net> (3.387, child i):

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Walter Kuhl had an interest in gambling.  His wife Annie Sutphin Kuhl told
him she would not tolerate it and he promised to stop.  Walter and Annie
were living in Hillside, Michigan when their son, Howard, was 4 years old.
It was during that year in Howard's life that Walter walked out the front
door one morning and never returned.  He must have been unable to control the
impulse to gamble.  He traveled to the Province of Saskatchewan in Canada,
where he lived for the next 55 years.  He changed his name to Marvin Drake,
remarried but never had another child.  To show how sad it was I quote from
a note that his second wife wrote to Annie when Howard died at the young
age of 53 years.  'I certainly would love to have seen Howard.  His picture
hangs in his (Walter's) bedroom over his bed and he has shed many tears
over the terrible mistake he made and I have so often wished I had used my
influence to persuade Marvin (Walter) to return to his dear wife and son.'

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