Twelve-year-old Florence Hayes had been sold by her father to a forty-year-old man in Boston on October 7, 1921, who intended to marry her and claim her as his pregnant bride.
Florence tried to run, ending up cornered in a narrow alleyway. Sixty-year-old shopkeeper Mr. Albert Collins noticed her distress as he opened his store early in the morning. He asked her quietly what was wrong, and upon hearing her story, called police immediately. The man attempting to abduct her was arrested, and Florence was placed in protective care.
The alleyway, meant as a shortcut for merchants, inadvertently became the scene of Florence’s liberation.
Florence lived until 2005, dying at age ninety-six. Before her death, she reflected:
“I was twelve, trapped in an alley, scared for my life. The shopkeeper saw me, listened, and called for help. That alley, dark and narrow, became the first place I felt safety
