| OCR Text |
Show W r-0" ' W IB I Ik I By Ethel Thurston 7"0U could scarcely blame a cynic for believing believ-ing that the institution of marriage was in a rather troubled situation. So many extraordinary ex-traordinary things are happening! )j For example, there was the case of the "kiss- wU 'c9s bride." Virginia Blair Reeves is a step daughter of Commander Archibald P. Parsons of i the Philadelphia Navy Yard. She made her debut in Philadelphia, and being a pretty girl was an interesting and popular social figure. Then she met Henry H. Warner at a house party in Montclair, X. J There was a quick courtship, a special dispensation from Mgr. Lavellc, and a marriage by the priest of St. Andrew's Church. There the romance stopped The marriage - ' was kept secret. And now it has been annulled -lit because Warner did not make love. The couple IlI saw each other a few times. They discussed housekeeping. But Warner could not, i; seems, ij be brought to the point of recognizing himself as really married. ntf "Where did you spend your hours with your . husband?" Mrs Warner was asked. J "In the parlor," she replied. "Nowhere else. I never even took walks with him. Once I saw f hun in the Powhatan Hotel in Washington, where j! r my parents were staying, but that was in the , " lobby. We met again at the Chevy Chase Club, i near Washington, and we had breakfast there, j ' Father and mother knew nothing of our mar- Jiu The day came when the girl who was married " yet was no wife felt obliged to inform her hus- Mb band that her personal and social position had f, become intolerable. Then the crash, the secret i ! trial and the annulment. ' This, in spite of flippant allusions to the H 'H "kissless bride," was somewhat of a tragedy in a V 'i gild's life. Tragic in another way was the case I.., of Dr. William C. Woolsey. Dr Woolsey's wife V committed suicide while he was serving in a V i medical corps in Prance. She shot herself in the : ' mouth. On his return from Prance Dr. Wools ry IwjL married again, lie appeared to be happy. Hi 3 career in his profession, both here and in France, I i had been successful. Bride and bridegroom came m to their Brooklyn, N. Y., home after a two hil weeks' wedding trip. Mrs. Woolsey went to her V husband's office the day after their return. He H U jg was not in the front room, where he treated his 1 4T patients. Going to the doctor's retiring room, tilr bhe failed to see him until she opened the door IJP! of a clothes closet Her husband's body then fell tt her feet. T I Stricken with horror, the bride ran out of tha ttp room and luid the superintendent telephone to Dr. Sidney Smith, of No. 370 Washington avenue, a F.:P friend of Dr. Woolsey, When Dr. Smith arrived Mil he said Dr. Wool.-ey had been dead for several Jj hours By going into the closet and. closing the door behind him he had muffled the report of his reolver, which had not been heard in the building. Dr. Woolsey shot himself with a ,45-calibr automatic Colt pistol, which he had obtained when he was in the army. Only one bullet was fired It must have killed him instantly. He hail killed himself in precisely tho manner in which his first wife had ended her life. Even more astounding is the tragedy of Arthur Ar-thur Niles, Jr., former'naval ensign, Princeton graduate, who killed himself tho day after his marriage to a beautiful girl. There may be a suspicion of an explanation for Dr. Woolsey's end (psychologists may turn to tho first wife), but the Niles mystery is without a hint of explanation. ex-planation. Let us turn to comedy for Vclief, even if the comedy is often just as perplexing Take the remarkable instance of Mrs. Harry Wells, who appeared in court with her husband. Mrs. Wells insisted that her husband was not behaing properly prop-erly Her husband was rather a pathetic figure as he revealed to the court the fact that tho whole trouble began with Mrs. Wells's cats. She took them to bed with her. Did not the judge think this an unpardonable ofFence, and one likely to alienate a husband ? The judge looked at Mr". Wells. Mrs. Wells admitted that she liked her cats better than husband Her cats, she said, stayed at home nights. Well, the upshot of this was that the judge advised Wells to hire a furnished room and let Mrs. Wells remain comfortably alone with her cats. Husband "and wife finally agreed to this plan. Perhaps I should mention the case of Mrs. Estelle Matta of San Francisco, who accused her husband of beating her, but who refused alimony when the separation came. "It is the custom of this court to award $50 for each blow," said Judge Graham. "I should judge that JO00 in a lump sum would be equitable equita-ble in your case." "I do not want any alimony," said Mrs. Matta. "My husband claims that he killed 25 Germans while he was serv- V f1 Zt ilig in Franco I Ii N "V JS rx do not doubt it ' v JXfSSjft from the way he ' k o? jwM1 treated me He T -fht man I would con- r ft ZZISJ feider it a crime I " -J if I, an American I . . ,j Mi rf woman, demand- VV1 1 j 1 )") JJ I ' '. i ed alimony from W-. WZ? Y H V. a man who had J" - JOT i k man B. Kendall. JO Vr0 When he was di- ' vorced from Nel lie Ballentine he settled on her property worth $4,500,000 and an income of $100,000 a year. This is how the Wall street broker got the title of the "Alimony King." Perhaps it was not astonishing and yet cyrnics wdl say it was that when he married in Thomasville, Ga , Miss Betty Lee, singer and actress, the first Mrs. Kendall said very kind things and actually gave Miss Lee (whose real name I understand to be Elizabeth Coyle) her hearty blessing. It was the first Mrs. Kendall who said at the time she divorced her husband, "I could never have done it except that I felt it was what Lyman wanted." Do you wonder that people get confused ideas about marriage? One man seems to have heard that the thing to do to be fully admired, really to fascinate women, was to "treat 'em rough." Even women have been known to advance theories like that Anyway, John E. Carey took Mrs. Helen C. Waterman out of her Brooklyn apartment in her nightgown and carried her in a taxicab to his apartment in Manhattan. This is how they came to call him the "cave man." Also this is why he was arrested on a charge of burglary and abduction! abduc-tion! He was to have been tried before County Judge McDermott, but he had disappeared, forfeiting for-feiting his bail. Lest you should become pessimistic, listen to the words of the late Maj. Charles Gamble Baird yes. and of his wife. Maj. Baird died in France He had been married for 14 years In his will ho wrote this: "J want to say to the world that my wife, in my estimation, is the most perfect woman I ever saw, heard or knew of. She is endowed with marvellous courage, a very strong will and an intensely high ideal of honor. Her love has newer new-er at any time diminished, but has grown always, until I feel it has reached a point that can reasonably rea-sonably be considered the acme of perfect love. I am the richest of men, in that I am blest with the truest, most honorable and loving wife in the world." And Mrs. Baird. Do you want to hear what she said? "God took him from me because we were so happy that we forgot everything else. I even forgot to pray there seemed nothing to pray for. Oh. why can't every one be like that? It is such a beautiful world, with the trees, the flowers, the sea and the blue sky. Only people make it ugly with their selfish desires." Harry Wells Complained That the Trouble Came Because His Wife Took Cats to Bed with Her. N.-luper lmture Snlf, 1818. . . -- i t T..' j-j r m,u v r . ' s Mrs. i.yman r. rvenuan. rnc y f ot the "Alimony Kin?." Who , Has Received a Blessing from Her Husband's First Wife. ' (?) lrr Jerri ont & tfmJktWak I I I J ZZZ ' L . -iksayor JfefcL "'Sass3s |
