A Marriage Omelet: Montana Couples Trade Mates, Kids

1917

New Wives for Old! Montana Couples Trade Mates in a Marriage Omelet and Are Happy

Husbands Get Fresh Wives, Wives Fresh Husbands, All Are Content With New Deal from Love's Deck and Four Tots Are Successfully Unscrambled in Fair Divide.

By K. C. RODGERS
(Staff Special)

Havre, Montana — Usually when a man falls in love with another man's wife there's a shooting affray.

And again, when a woman gets to liking another woman's husband better than her own there's the deuce to pay.

But not so here.

When Mrs. T. W. Turcotte, wife of a prominent Havre lawyer, felt she loved the husband of Mrs. Henry Jordan better than her own mate she didn't hide the matter.

Nor did Mrs. Henry Jordan when she fell in love with Mr. Turcotte.

Nor did Mr. Turcotte when he took a liking to Mrs. Jordan.

Nor did Mr. Jordan when he became fonder of Mrs. Turcotte than of his own wife.

Their way out of an unusual love tangle was to trade wives and husbands. Mrs. Jordan agreed to swap her husband to Mrs. Turcotte in exchange for Mr. Turcotte.

The husbands were willing enough to be traded. In fact they were well along on a plan to trade wives with each other.

So instead of any killings and unwritten law defenses, or suits for ' alienation of affection, there evolved two unique matrimonial trades.

The Jordans and Turcottes agreed to get divorces.

Divorce decrees were granted them at Boulder Hot Springs, June 29.

Then the former Mrs. Jordan became the new Mrs. Turcotte, and the former Mrs. Turcotte became the new Mrs. Jordan.

The two couples stood up together at the ceremony and the friendliest relations exist between them. Now they are living again as neighbors in all good fellowship.

Before the divorces the Jordans and Turcottes were next door neighbors. It was then that the husbands and their wives concluded they were wrongly mated and decided to back out of their matrimonial alliances and start anew.

Both couples had children, each a boy and girl.

After the matrimonial swap one couple took the two boys, and the other took the two girls. This gives each father and mother one own child and a step-child.

Vernon Turcotte and Woodrow Jordan now live with Turcotte and his wife, who was Mrs. Jordan. Amelia Jordan and Irene Turcotte now are sisters in the new Jordan family.

Both families are well to do. Turcotte is a widely known attorney, and Jordan is a prosperous merchant. The children seem satisfied with the new arrangement.

These two children were born Turcotte — Irene and Vernon.

The former Mrs. Turcotte, now Mrs. Jordan by virtue of her divorce and her marriage to the husband of her close friend, keeps Irene.

Turcotte, with the new Mrs. Turcotte, formerly Mrs. Jordan, keeps the boy Vernon.

"I'm pleased," says the new Mrs. Jordan.

"So am I," asserts the new Mrs. Turcotte.

"We, too," chorus the traded husbands.

"May they live happily ever afterward," almost anyone will hope.

In the unscrambling of this matrimonial omelet, affecting four adults and four children, each parent keeps one natural child and gains in exchange for the other a step-child. Each child keeps one natural parent, and exchanges the other for a foster-parent.

Which parent got the better of the choice between little Vernon and Irene?

—Fort Wayne Weekly Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, July 28, 1917, page 8.