Category: divorce

Guess Who…

Guess Who Headline

August 20, 1927
Los Angeles

Esther and Wilber Ebermayer weren’t playing a silly children’s game when Esther called out “Guess Who” – she was reading the inscription from the back of a small photograph she had found tucked inside of her husband’s watch case. Guess Who Pic

Esther had expected to find her own picture in the case so she was surprised, hurt, and angry when she discovered the coyly inscribed photo of an unknown woman smiling back at her.

Friends to whom Wilber had shown the photo informed Esther that he had been describing the woman as his future bride – once he’d managed to rid himself of his current ball and chain.

The wronged wife immediately sought a divorce from her faithless husband. “Well,” she told Judge Sproul, “if that’s the way he feels about it, he is rid of me right now as far as I’m concerned”.

Memo to Wilber: buy yourself a wristwatch.

Only Two Years, Three Months, & One Week til this Whole Thing Blows Over

July 22, 1927
Anaheim

costshomeMrs. Geraldine Haster was a product of her time—too bad her time was so terribly and sinfully debased!  It was bad enough that she had taken to wearing cosmetics (!) but then she had even gone so far as to bob her hair (!!)!  Why not just tattoo "SCAPEGRACE" across your forehead, Geraldine?

When Geraldine returned with her mother and a party of friends from a motor trip to Tijuana (need we say more?) she found herself locked out of the home she shared with her husband, prominent Anaheim rancher Richard Haster.  Geraldine filed for divorce, charging cruelty.

On the stand today Geraldine alleged that life with ol’ Dick was no picnic either:  he took liberties with other women, was adverse to frequent bathing, read magazines while guests were in the house (!!!), stayed at the lodge until 4am, and, most hurtful of all, when she wore cosmetics, was told by her husband that she looked like a “Piute Indian.”  She thus demands division of property valued at $100,000 ($1,102,998 USD 2006).

lutherans!Yes, the twenties were a time of tumult and turmoil as conventions unraveled, exposing lots of hypocrisy and kicked-up heels.  Lutherans took especial offence at all this gayety, closing their thirty-fifth annual convention today with the adoption of a resolution deploring the tendency of American youth toward “extravagance, immodesty, and disrespect.”

Lutherans sleep easy tonight knowing that American youth turned out just fine.

Cough Syrup Fiend

June 22, 1927
Los Angeles

Ranch dweller Grace Haynes was in divorce court today, seeking her freedom from husband Amos on grounds of extreme cruelty.

He didn’t abuse her, per se, but she claimed to be terrorized by his habit of knocking back bottles of high-octane cough syrup, after which he’d commence to ranting and raving before wandering out to the pig pen and beating holy hell out of their swine herd. And that can’t be good for the pork chops.

Amos denied the accusation, countering that he’d be happy to take Grace back if she’d just stop running around all night. A fascinated Judge Bowron continued the case to hear more the next morning, but the papers failed to report if Amos was delusional or Grace an imaginative liar, and whether or not the pigs turned up seeking damages.

Sooooo-ey!

Water, Water Everywhere — Except in Ventura

Bad Water

June 4, 1927
Pasadena

"Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over." – Mark Twain

Pasadena residents Raymond T. Wood and Cleo Wood have been married for three years. In March of this year Raymond decided to seek employment out of town. When he found a job in Ventura, he naturally assumed that Cleo would join him there. That’s when the trouble began.

Much to Raymond’s dismay, Cleo refused to budge. She claimed that she wanted to continue working in Pasadena and told her baffled husband that she couldn’t possibly move to Ventura because of the bad drinking water. Evidently Cleo and Raymond had never heard of Sparkletts.

Sparkletts

Raymond doesn’t believe that his wife is being truthful about why she wants to remain in Pasadena. While working in Ventura he had discovered that his wife was spending every night alone together with their star boarder. “She became intoxicated with him.” Raymond said.

As far as Raymond is concerned, his wife’s excuses for staying in Pasadena don’t hold water.

With Time Off For Being So Enterprising

May 3, 1927
Pomona 

Some call it extortion; we call it a rather clever short con. C.L. Jackson and R.W. Hedgreth, both 48 and old enough to know better, approached service station operators Harold K. Hemmingway and Norman Bliss in the guise of being Prohibition officers, and asked where ’round here one could wet one’s whistle. After being informed of the details, Jackson and Hedgreth threatened to alert the real Prohibition men of the illegal info being spread, and demanded a pair of tires, gasoline and $25 cash to keep quiet. But Hemmingway noted the serial numbers on the bills and called the law, and the crooks were soon nabbed.

Justice U.E. White must not have thought much of the victims in the case, for he sentenced the men to six months in County Jail, which he promptly suspended for good behavior. 

Meanwhile, in Reno, Nevada’s first short residency divorce was granted to Sophia M. Ross of New York, who braved the desert winds and cultural drought for three months so she could be freed of her Albert, who ate mashed potatoes with his hands.  

News of Dissolutions

April 12, 1927
Los Angeles 

Ah, Spring! The time when a man’s thoughts turn to trading in his bride for a younger model, and a woman considers murder. Let’s see what’s happening in the family courts today.

Juanita Fletcher Crosland was granted a divorce from her film director hubby (Frederic) Alan Crosland (The Jazz Singer) on grounds of cruelty and intemperance–she claimed he would stay out until 4am for weeks at a time, and then scream vile, drunken epithets on his return. The couple married in 1917, and resided at 626 North Palm Drive, Beverly Hills. Frederic is keeping the Palm Drive home and a car, while Juanita walks with $500/week alimony, property in Westchester N.Y. and a promise that Frederic Junior’s college bills will be paid. (Gaze into the crystal to see where Alan Crosland is today.)

Helen Griffith has been freed of her Oran after telling Judge Summerfield that Oran’s language was so foul, the neighborhood ladies slammed their windows and pulled their children inside when he was strolling, and sometimes called the cops. 

And in Highland Park, Judson Studios patriarch William Lees Judson, 84, sought to be severed from Ruth Seffern (or Suffern) Judson, described in court as a virago who rented rooms in the family manse to liquor sellers, and who was so abusive to William’s students that he was compelled to shut his College of Fine Arts (part of the University of Southern California, founded in 1901). William, who came to California for his health in 1893, would die in October 1928 in his Highland Park Studio, which continues to be run as a family stained glass operation and art gallery today.

 

Fatal Fury

Nov. 16, 1907
Los Angeles

Mrs. Amanda Cook (she is also identified as Jennie and Mary) came to Los Angeles from Boston in 1906 with two of her children in search of her husband, Frederick, a union plasterer and bricklayer. She advertised in the newspapers without success and finally took a job as a cook at the Juvenile Detention Home.

Persuaded by her cousin to seek a divorce, she hired attorney George W. MacKnight, who sought out her errant husband and began divorce proceedings.

One day, after being threatened with divorce, Frederick appeared at the juvenile home and upon seeing his wife, said:

An American Education

Oct. 19, 1907
Los Angeles

On a visit to Japan, K. Tsuneda of California met an attractive young woman named Toku. Telling her family that he was a wealthy Stanford student, Tsuneda married Toku and they embarked for the United States so his new wife could get an American education.

Her education began the moment they arrived in San Francisco: Tsuneda revealed that he was neither wealthy, nor a Stanford student. In fact, they both had to go to work. They moved from Berkeley to Redlands, where they separated. After reuniting briefly in Los Angeles, Tsuneda vanished, Toku said in seeking a divorce.

In court, Toku told Judge Charles Monroe that her father wouldn