Refused 15 Cents Refused 15 Cents For Haircut, Man Asks For Divorce

La Crosse, Wisconsin, 1917

James B. Taylor is what some women would call a "model husband." He admits that every month he brought home his pay envelope to Friend Wife, whom her fond parents had christened Rena, and it seemed natural to him that he should have some rights with respect to the contents of the package for which he worked hard six days of the week, but—

She refused to give him 15 cents for a hair cut and once she hit him over the head with a book because he failed to account for 80 cents of his wages.

Those are the allegations which he makes in a divorce complaint filed in circuit court here Monday. James charges his wife with being "penurious, stingy and miserly" and nagging him for eight years. On top of that he charges that she admitted being in love with one Joe Crockeroff and also names one Louis Kinnear. both non-residents. The complaint recites that she left her husband to keep house for an uncle at Kendall, telling her provider that she "could not live with him if he was the last man in the world."

—The La Crosse Tribune and Leader-Press, La Crosse, Wisconsin, January 23, 1917, page 1.