Genealogue Challenge #120

Victoria Moloney sent me this item from the Tucson (Ariz.) Daily Citizen of May 3, 1906.

CHICAGO, May 3—Mrs. Helen Moloney, the beautiful wife of James Moloney, the Chicago manufacturer, obtained a divorce solely to get a $500,000 estate left her by her mother on condition that she separate from him.

They are to be remarried this summer, just as soon as Mrs. Moloney perfects the title to the estate.

This was the statement made today by Mr. Moloney, who declares groundless the charges that his wife flirted with W. J. White, the "chewing gum king," of Cleveland. He declares that Mrs. Moloney is still true to him.

"Mrs. Moloney's mother, who is an English woman of title, took a strong dislike to me. She inserted in her will a bequest of nearly $500,000 to Mrs. Moloney, with the proviso that she divorce me. So we agreed to be divorced and remarry."

"What is the name of the titled English family to which Mrs. Moloney belongs?" was asked.

"I do not care to say. I do not wish to draw them into this affair," said Mr. Moloney. "We will be remarried before September 1."

Victoria asks, is the "divorce story true or a bunch of hooey?"

Can you find any proof that the story is true and the couple remarried?

Genealogue Challenge #66

This challenge requires that you delve into Harvard Law School's digital collections.

In a divorce case in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, a respected physician was accused of "playing doctor" with the libelant's wife.

Who was the doctor, and what lasting honor was bestowed upon him after his death?

A Surname Torn Asunder

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced Friday that he and his wife are separating. Which leads me to wonder, who will get custody of their last name?

When Antonio Villar married Corina Raigosa in 1987, the couple fused their names together, resulting in the surname Villaraigosa. [Link]

How I'll Spend My Summer Vacation

I'll be taking one of my nieces to a White Stripes concert this summer in an effort to convince her I'm not really as old as she thinks I am. For those of you who really are old, the band's two members—Jack White and Meg White—claimed to be brother and sister when they first became famous five or six years ago. The sexual tension onstage was just plain disturbing until their marriage license and divorce record came to light.

A Very Deserving Fellow

Civil War veteran James Kindred Williams and wife Elizabeth had their first child in 1869. 27 years and 15 children later, Elizabeth had had enough.

In 1896, Williams filed for divorce, alleging that his wife "refused to give to him what God and nation said he deserved."

Lizzie Williams, who moved in with one of her children, did not respond to her husband's allegations.

The courts did not resolve the divorce until March 15, 1898, when a judge "dissolved" the marriage "on account of voluntary abandonment." [Link]

James soon after found a woman who would give him what he deserved, and six additional children besides.

Ancestry.com Gambles on Love

Ancestry.com is offering Vegas Betting Odds on whether you and your sweetheart will get married or divorced in Sin City. Someone at The Generations Network has grown a funny bone.

No psychics, counselors or members of your family were consulted in the creation of this site. Odds are based solely on Nevada marriage and divorce data from publicly available records in various Nevada county and state archives. Food for thought: If you’re unsure enough about a potential spouse to let a web site inform your decisions, we recommend you think twice. Ancestry.com accepts no responsibility for the success or failure of your marriage in Las Vegas. But in the case that you do live happily ever after, we’ll be happy to take full credit.

Not coincidentally, you can search 4.5 million Nevada marriages and 475,000 Nevada divorces at Ancestry.com for free through Feb. 28.

Marital Limbo

A woman in Xi'an, China, may be stuck with her husband for life because he tore up their marriage certificate in a fit of anger.

The local registry office refused Huang's divorce application and told her she must first apply for a marriage certificate again, but her husband refused to go with her.

The law stipulates that marriage certificates can only be applied for by couples, not individuals. [Link]

The Ultimate Prenup

Saying she doesn't want to be "tied down," a woman in China has given her impending marriage an expiration date.

Qing, 30, a freelance magazine writer, required her fiancé, an architect, to sign a contract agreeing to divorce in eight years before they registered for a marriage certificate on Monday.

The contract stipulated that the couple would return to the registry office for the divorce in eight years' time. [Link]

A Matrimonial Muddle

From the Sheboygan (Wis.) Press-Telegram of Apr. 4, 1922:

Milwaukee.—Mrs. Augusta Diesert, 64 years old, champion of marrying misses, lost two of the five husbands she has acquired during her career, in less than ten minutes at a hearing before Judge Oscar M. Fritz Monday afternoon.

She was granted a divorce on the grounds of desertion from John Diesert, whom she had previously divorced, and then remarried. At the same time Peter Grimm, whom she married when she believed Diesert was dead and whom she left last May when she met her undivorced husband on the street, was granted an annulment.

Married for the first time at the age of sixteen, this is Mrs. Diesert's record:

In 1874 she married Julius Winkel, whom she divorced after a number of years. In 1898 she became the wife of August Borchardt who died. In 1899 she married Diesert for the first time and later divorced him. Then she became Mrs. Conrad Raster. He died. In 1905 she remarried Diesert.

According to her testimony she married him in the afternoon and he told her to go home and make supper while he packed his clothes and brought them to her house.

"We waited supper for him until 8 o'clock," she declared. "He didn't come. At 4 in the morning he arrived—drunk. I told him to go right back where he came from. I never saw him again for 18 years, but I heard he was dead. In 1917 I married Peter Grimm. He didn't support me either."

President Outranks Pioneer

From the Warren (Pa.) Evening Mirror of Dec. 22, 1911:

St. Louis, Dec. 22.—John T. Boone, Jr., descendant of Daniel Boone, obtained a divorce at Clayton from Ethel Edwards Boone, great grand niece of Thomas Jefferson.

One of the allegations Boone made on the witness stand was that his wife repeatedly told him that her family tree was superior to his. She considered Thomas Jefferson a more distinguished ancestor than his great Kentucky pioneer and Indian fighter and she repeatedly declared the Boones looked like washer women when compared with the Jeffersons. Boone is an insurance promoter. An alimony settlement was made out of court.

Update (Oct. 10): Dave at OakvilleBlackWalnut sends along a clipping of the original article, which gives some additional info on the wellborn Mrs. Boone:

After her husband left the University City home last May Mrs. Boone continued to live there with many servants. Five times in as many weeks she reported strange occurrences in the house.

Intruders, she said, moved the furniture about at night, helped themselves to food in the kitchen and left knives sticking in the butter. She told the county authorities she thought someone was doing these things to annoy her. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dec. 21, 1911]

Couple Fights for Custody of GenWeb Site

A Genealogue Exclusive [What's That?]

Two years after Roger and Jen Morey were married, they decided to adopt a county as part of the Illinois GenWeb Project. Now the couple is engaged in a bitter dispute over who will retain custody of the Wallace County genealogy website once their divorce is finalized.

"The adoption was all my idea," insists Jen. "I quit my job as a manicurist so I could spend more time with the site. Just look how much it's grown since then!"

Roger, she says, was excited about the adoption at first, but quickly lost interest when he realized how much work was involved.

"He doesn't care about the site. Sure," she says, "sometimes he'll play with it on the weekends. But when he comes home from work he never wants to hear about what's happened with it during the day."

For his part, Roger says his soon-to-be-ex-wife is unfit to look after their website.

"Once I came home and found she'd gone out shopping and left the site unattended. There were three queries waiting to be posted, and the dead links hadn't been weeded out in months. I'd rather permanently delete it than hand it over to a woman that irresponsible."

The issue will be resolved by State Coordinator Daniel Burns early next week. He would not comment on the specifics of the case, but did say that in such matters the "best interests of the project figure largely." Whatever his decision, the Moreys have both pledged to maintain their links to the website.

[Photo sources: Lianne Still Looking Unhappy and Unhappy Keith (license)]

Senator Checks the Family Closets

This afternoon on the Senate floor, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) stood before a large photograph of his family and shared this important fact: "I’m really proud to say that in the recorded history of our family, we’ve never had a divorce or any kind of homosexual relationship." [Link]

The Senator must be alluding to the article recently published in the National Genealogical Society Quarterly: "The Inhofes—America's Least Gay Family."

Update: Leave it to Sharon Elliott to prove the Senator wrong—and in record time, too. Makes me wonder what other family secrets ol' Jim's been hiding. Perhaps an uncle who died a "confirmed bachelor"?

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

Tenth Time's a Charm

From The Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald:

Recite incantation, get 10 wives

January 26, 2006 - 12:30AM

A middle-aged Tokyo man found to be living with 10 younger women said he attracted them by reciting an incantation that came to him in a dream.

[snip]

"I had a dream that told me I would become attractive to women if I recited a particular incantation," Kyodo news agency quoted the man as saying.

A rapid series of weddings and divorces left the man with a large group of ex-wives, mostly in their 20s and 30s, who shared his surname and continued to live with him.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

[tagged: genealogy]

Nice Try, Wrong Religion

From Kenilworth (U.K.) Today of Nov. 23, 2005:

Man cleared of bigamy in Kenilworth

[snip]

[Michael] Huntington (56) of Pegasus House, Welbeck Road, Bolsover, Chesterfield, had pleaded not guilty at Warwick Crown Court in June to bigamously marrying Linda Branagh.

During an earlier hearing the court heard it was alleged that Huntington had gone through 'a form of marriage' to Ms Branagh in May 2003 while still married.

But Huntington said that before the marriage he had divorced his previous wife, with whom he was living abroad, by telling her 'I divorce you' three times at the airport before he returned to the UK - although they were both described as Christians on the marriage certificate.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

By a Sunni Islamic procedure called a triple talaq, a husband can divorce his wife by saying "Talaq, talaq, talaq" ("I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you"). If you're not a Sunni Muslim, you'd better have a good lawyer on speed dial before attempting this.