Farmer Henryer Meant Well, but He Didn't Deserve a Good Wife

1895

Old Ripley Henryer is a well to do farmer with skinflint tendencies whose life has been passed without an emotion except what may have been engendered in getting money together and holding fast to it.

When his father died a quarter of a century ago, his mother concluded she could not get along without him, so she quickly followed the same way, and Ripley, coming into possession of the homestead, felt the necessity for a good cook and washerwoman. Then he prevailed upon Hetty Mercer, an affectionate and pretty girl of the neighborhood, to assume those duties, first making her his wife.

It is possible he said nothing to her of the obligations attendant upon the wifely relations, but that made no difference as to results. Ripley was strong as an ox, and, a hard worker himself, he had no use for lazy people and no excuses for those who were weaker than himself.

As time passed little Henryers, one, two, three, five in all, came into the family fold, each one adding to the wife's cares, and meantime Ripley added to his acres.

The number of hired men increased, but in all the years it never occurred to him that the mother of his children might need help in her department. Hired girls were "scarce and awful high," as he put it when one of the neighbors reminded him of his remissness.

Hetty bore her yoke in silence and might have been contented even but for the man's utter lack of sentiment or affection. She had never felt the gentle pressure of his hand in soft caress, and he had never kissed her in his life. She grew old fast, faded and drooped, and finally even the stolid, sordid husband saw the necessity of calling in a doctor.

When the latter was leaving the house, he called Ripley aside and said:

"Suppose you show your wife a little kindness. I think a bit of affection will do her more good than medicine. She's in a bad way and may die."

The selfish fellow was frightened at the prospect of losing his cook and faithful housekeeper, and after some deliberation he entered her bedchamber and awkwardly approached her side, then stooped over and kissed her pale, cold brow.

The poor woman, who for 25 years had been dying for sympathy and love, was so startled at this exhibition of feeling on the part of her husband that tears of thankfulness gathered in her eyes and then rolled down her cheeks.

The lubberly fellow started back at sight of this evidence of weakness and blurted out:

"Gosh! Hetty, you needn't mind it. I didn't mean nothing by it. Doc, he said it mebbe'd make you feel better."

Then the tears dried quickly enough, and the woman turned her pallid face toward the wall.

When Ripley came back an hour later, all the kisses in the world could not have brought moisture to her eyes. The office of cook and laundress was vacant in his house. — Chicago Tribune.

Wife Finds Right Key to Hubby's Love Code

1916

His Clandestine Missives Then Read Like Open Book to Indignant Spouse.

SAN FRANCISCO, California — A code used by Chester J. Capps of this city in writing affectionate letters to other women fell into the hands of Mrs. Eunice Capps, his wife, and thereafter the little love missives became to his wife an open book. The letters written in the code language were introduced in evidence before Superior Judge Deasy when Mrs. Capps was granted a divorce on the ground of cruelty.

Capps, an employe of the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company, invented his code to carry on a correspondence with Grace Durbrow of Fresno. The directions for its use are as follows:

"Write each word backward and add a letter both before and after, so when you read it, all you have to do is leave off the first and last letters of each word and read it backward, as follows:

"A-d-n-a-t spells and, with the first and last letters stricken out. "A-l-l-i-w-y, d-e-e-s-o, s-u-o-y-a, s-n-o-o-s-a."

The code fell into the hands of Mrs. Capps when the young woman to whom it was addressed found that Capps was a married man. Accompanying the letter addressed to Mrs. Capps and containing the code was a copy of a letter addressed to Capps which read:

"I have just heard that you have a wife with whom you are living in San Francisco. You are a liar and a scoundrel and tarring and feathering is too good for you."

Investigation started by Mrs. Capps brought to light letters which her husband had received and written to several other women and these were introduced in evidence. There was introduced in evidence also a lock of chestnut hair which Mrs. Capps found in a locket her husband wore as a watch charm, and a dainty handkerchief used by another woman.

Capps explained that the handkerchief was his sister's but had no explanation for the hair. The letters also, he told his wife, were merely such as might be written from a brother to a sister.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 4.

Will Not Kiss Their Wives

1901

Thirteen Married Men of Mount Hope, Kansas, Form an Organization.

Thirteen men of Mount Hope, a small town near Wichita, Kan., are adherents of the belief that men should not kiss women, says the Chicago Record-Herald. All of the 13 are married, and they have just formed a club known as the Mount Hope Married Man's Anti-kissing club.

All the members are quite prominent in business circles of that place, and the organization of the club was kept under cover for three weeks, but the secret finally leaked out, In a statement to reporters President Wilson said:

"All this talk about our wives going to sue us for divorce because we have pledged not to kiss them is rot of the worst kind. We went into this with the understanding that it was to be carried out as an experiment, and we will stick to it if the women uphold us in it. Of course, every member has taken a pledge not to kiss his wife for one year, but there is a proviso that if we all get tired of the proposition we can disorganize the club and no one will have broken a pledge.

"I have been into it now three weeks and am perfectly satisfied with the arrangement, as is my wife. I find that kissing is a filthy habit and without it man can love a great deal more strongly."

Mother Whips Man Courting Her Girl

1920 (*1919)

But Maid Still Vows Love For Married Suitor

Unhappy Wife and Desperate Parent Are Victims of Sordid "Eternal Triangle"

KANSAS CITY, Mo., Jan. 1. — Love of the eternal triangle brand, which sneered at the marriage vow and set at naught horsewhippings of an angry mother and which had no regard for a little new life coming into the world, brazenly bared itself in the South Side Court.

Edward L. Branham, 22 years old, a telegraph operator, stood beside his wife, who is to bear him a child. He was there to answer a charge of disturbing the peace, sworn to by Mrs. Minnie Savage. Mrs. Savage's daughter, Lois Savage, 19 years old, Who is the "other woman," stood beside her mother.

Engaged Three Years Ago

Branham and Lois Savage had been engaged three years ago. Mrs. Savage would not approve the match. They parted. Branham married.

Mrs. Savage, a small, alert woman with reddish hair, was the first to testify.

"For two years Lois and Branham have been meeting each other, in spite of his marriage. My daughter is crazy in love with a married man. I have pleaded with them both in vain.

"I became desperate and went to his office and horsewhipped him publicly there. That had no particular effect. He would send her presents, candy, flowers. He would telegraph her when she was away on visits."

Judge Edward J. Fleming turned to the girl, Lois Savage.

Wished to Marry Him, Anyway

"Judge, I love him," she said. "If he got a divorce today, I would marry him tomorrow."

"Don't you realize," Judge Fleming asked, "that he is the type who would throw you over, too?"

The girl looked up boldly.

"It would not matter."

Then the wife, Mrs. Branham, spoke calmly:

"I love my husband. That woman has been breaking up my home. My husband has been urging a divorce, but I don't wish one. Everything would be settled if it were not for that girl."

Mrs. Branham told of Lois Savage visiting her home and asking Mrs. Branham to give up her husband. The girl went to Branham's room, the wife said, took a picture of him from the wall, kissed and caressed it and took it with her when she left.

"Is that all true?" Judge Fleming asked Branham.

Wife Refused Him a Divorce

"Yes," Branham admitted. "I kept company with her even after I was married. I desire a divorce, but my wife refuses it."

"Your fine is $500," the court told Branham. "I'll parole you if you leave the girl alone. If not, jail for you."

Then Judge Fleming turned to Mrs. Savage.

"As for that daughter of yours," he said, "a whipping would be a good thing for her, too."

Branham was paroled when he promised, after court adjourned, to cease association with Lois. The girl, weeping, was led from the courtroom by her mother and brother. Outside the building she attempted to return to the courtroom.

"Please," she said, "let me tell Edward good-by — for the last time! Please!"

She started to take a diamond ring from her finger, then said:

"No, I'll keep it to remember him!"

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 3. *Note: These events took place in 1919, like maybe November. The Blade seems to put a current dateline on everything, the date they were putting the story in the newspaper.

Lovemaking and Practice

1910

The only way to become an expert at lovemaking is to practice. This was the information handed out to a handful of hearers by the Hindu philosopher, Sakharam Ganesh Pandit, in a lecture on "The Science of Love."

"Love is a divine discontent," said the philosopher, "and if you want to arouse love in others it can be done only by giving them love. How to develop the emotion of love in another, is the great question of today — the art of making love. It needs a great deal of study and a great deal of practice."

You Ought To Have a Wheel Hoe

1917

A wheel hoe is the gardener's best friend; with it one man can do as much work in two hours as he can in six with the old-fashioned common hoe. It saves laborious stooping, makes the work easier and does it better. These hoes have several attachments such as drills, cultivators and different-sized hoes, making it suitable for crops of all kinds and sizes. If a man is too lazy to attend to his own garden, his wife will find the use of the wheel hoe very comforting.


His Dress

When a girl falls in love with a young man she wishes he would wear some other kind of necktie.


Handicapped

"Ernest, were you looking through the keyhole last night at your sister and me?" "Honest, I wasn't. Mother was in the way."

Cupid Ten o'Clock Club

Indiana, 1905

Scheme to Revolutionize Love Making in Logansport, Indiana

For the purpose of discouraging swains with a disposition to monopolize all their time and to encourage the habit of "breaking away" early the Cupid Ten o'Clock club of Logansport Ind., has organized with twenty charter members, says a special dispatch from that place to the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Miss Florence Moore, the founder, is the president. She declared that two evenings a week was abundant opportunity for the prosecution of the most ardent suit, and believes that "no two young people can have anything so important to say that it cannot fully be discussed in a three hour call."

Announcing in newspapers her intention to combat evils arising from too great familiarity before marriage, she called for enrollments in the new club and declares it will revolutionize love making in Logansport. She hopes to extend the idea throughout the state. Miss Moore is only eighteen and of a prominent old family.

Will Women Abandon Love?

1910

Gertrude Atherton, the novelist, has been writing for Harper's Bazar on "The Woman in Love." In her first two papers Mrs. Atherton discusses those women in history whose love episodes have been the most striking thing about them. In her third paper, however, not yet published, she makes some predictions concerning the place that love will take in the future.

Mrs. Atherton does not go so far as Mrs. Belmont, who predicts that there will be a war between the sexes, due to the fact that men will not give women the suffrage. Mrs. Atherton believes and states, however, that from now on the love element will be a far less vital thing in women's lives than it has been heretofore. She thinks that the broadening out of feminine interests, the entrance of women into new fields, the intellectual development of women, are all factors which will fill women's lives to the comparative exclusion of that other factor which heretofore has been supposed to be "her whole existence."


The Busy Ant

Ants have six ears, which are located at about the queerest places imaginable — the legs. The ants are deaf to all sounds made by the vibration of the air, but detect the slightest possible vibrations of solid matter. This is supposed to be to their advantage. So sensitive are their feet that they can detect the drop of a small birdshot dropped on a table from a height of six inches and about 14 feet distant from an artificial nest placed at the other end of the table. The ant also has an elaborate array of noses.

Wise Words — "Whatever Love Undertakes"

1896

Whatever love undertakes to do, it does well.

A sunbeam in the heart is bound to light the face.

Some people might as well be crazy; they have no sense.

Labor is drudgery only when we do not put heart in our work.

A pessimist is not blind, yet he can not see even a bright prospect.

It is to live twice when we enjoy the recollections of our former life.

Some people prepare their excuses before they make their failures.

Everyone believes in friends until he has had occasions to try them.

Nothing succeeds like success. It can convert a traitor into a patriot in five seconds.

When we come close to a giant, he often turns out to be only a common man on stilts.

A little lovers' quarrel or two is a good thing by which to take each other's measure.

It is a question with many bright young men whether they will practice law, medicine or deception.

Never lie in bed thinking that the cat that is howling in the back yard will grow weary and go away.

A single man has nobody but himself to blame if things go wrong. A married man can blame it all to his wife.

It is not in the power of a good man to refuse making another happy, where he has both ability and opportunity. — The South-West.

Keeping His Word

1904

Sandy is the resident janitor of one of the smaller colleges. He is a bit of a character in his way, and makes an effort not to be outdone by the students. The success is sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other. Sandy owned a little mean-looking dog, of which he was fond. He was treated to much good-humored chaff about the dog, but always replied in kind, frequently asserting, "I widna tak twinty dulthers for ma wee doggy."

A few of the more waggish freshmen made up their minds to test Sandy's assertion. Between them they made up twenty dollars, and one of their number was authorized on the first favorable opportunity to make Sandy an offer.

As was quite common with him, Sandy happened into the cloak-room between lectures. The dog soon became a subject of debate, and out came Sandy's statement, "I widna tak twinty dulthers for ma wee doggy."

"Well, Sandy," said a young freshman, "I would like to have that dog, and here's twenty dollars if you'll sell him," He counted the money out on the table near Sandy.

Without a smile Sandy gravely put his hand in his pocket, drew out a fifty-cent piece, and laid it on the table, at the same time pocketing the twenty dollars. "I didna say I widna tak nineteen fufty. The wee doggy's yourn."


The Test
By John B. Tabb

The dead there are, who live;
The living, who are dead:
The poor, who still can give;
The rich, who lack for bread:
By Love it is, and Love alone,
That Life or Luxury is known.

Gett Came So Often, Gaigg Just Got Out

Chicago, 1920

Now He's Getting a Divorce While the Getting Is Good

Ludwig Gaigg married Nora Gaigg Dec. 15, 1912.

Last year "Mr. Gett" got between them.

"Forget me, as I shall forget you," wrote Mrs. Gaigg to Mr. Gaigg.

Gaigg took the letter to Judge Sullivan of the Chicago Superior Court and got a divorce.

"We separated Sept. 1, 1919," Gaigg testified. "A man was there whenever I came home."

"Who was he?" asked his attorney, John V. McCormick.

"Mr. Gett," replied Mr. Gaigg. "When I objected, she told me to take my suitcase and get out."

Following is the "forget me" letter that Gaigg said he got from Nora Gaigg, his wife, Nov. 28, 1919:

"Mr. L. Gaigg: You will do me a great favor if you will stay away from me entirely, as I do not wish to see you or have anything to do with you any more. I am thru with you forever and would never think of living with you again. All the love I ever had for you has gone, and I hope you will forget me as I shall forget you."

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Feb. 28, 1920, p. 3.

Slump in Manicuring Business

1908

Manicuring girls find that their business, like most others, is suffering as a result of the slump in the stock market. But they are still doing fairly well, thanks to bridge whist.

"As long as folks can afford to play bridge we'll have good business," explained one of the nail polishers. "Women who play the game have to be careful about the looks of their hands, they are so conspicuous when dealing and shuffling. In fact, the bridge craze saved the lives of most manicures. Highly polished nails had gone out of style, and the business was going to the dogs when the bridge craze saved the day." — New York Sun.

The Tear Cure

A good cry is a solace to many women. It steadies the nerves, and, added to a cup of tea and an interesting story, forms their idea of supreme happiness. Arising from the perusal of their books with red eyes, swelled features and a sopping pocket handkerchief, they feel their time has not been wasted. — Lady Violet Greville in London Chronicle.

Love

We are dazzled and charmed by those who love deepest, but we are comforted and strengthened by those who love longest.

New York Man Never Kissed

1910

Handsome Easterner Makes Blushing Admission — Likes Girls

New York. — Can a man live 40 years in New York, with all its pretty girls, without kissing or being kissed? Here is one man who says he can. He points to his own case as an instance, and the other day he told why. Olin W. Hill, secretary of the Carnegie Safe Deposit company, is the man. He is over forty, handsome, well groomed, and bears all the outward marks of a man-about-town.

But Mr. Hill has at last fallen a victim to Cupid's darts, and he blushingly admitted his engagement to Miss Martha Brown, daughter of Mrs. Slater Brown of Seattle.

"The young woman is now in New York purchasing her trousseau," Mr. Hill said, "and she expects her mother here shortly.

"Until now I have never been in love with any woman, have never kissed a woman, or even thought of proposing. I had intended to keep my engagement secret until Miss Brown's mother arrived, and then let her make the announcement, but the false reports that I was to marry a stenographer named Miss Brown in the employ of the Carnegie Trust company had to be corrected."

Mr. Hill admitted that he liked the girls well enough, but said that he believed that no man had a right to kiss one until after marriage.

Long Wars Due to Whiskers

1910

Trivial Incident Led to Three Hundred Years of Fighting

For ages beards were the delight of ancient beauties. The sight of a shaved chin excited sentiments of horror and aversion.

To obey the injunctions of his bishops, Louis VII of France cropped his hair a la pompadour and shaved off his luxuriant whiskers. Eleanor of Aquitane, his consort, found him with this uncommon appearance very ridiculous and very contemptible. She revenged herself by becoming something more than a coquette. The king obtained a divorce.

She then married the count of Anjou, who shortly afterward ascended the French throne, and gave him as her marriage dower the rich provinces of Poiton and Guienne; and this was the origin of those wars which for 300 years ravaged France and which cost the French nation 3,000,000 men.

All of which, probably, would have never taken place if Louis VII had not been so rash as to shave off his whiskers, by which he made himself so disgusting to the fair Eleanor.


Love Affairs of the Sexes

It is only her first love affair that a woman cherishes and remembers. Man is so lacking in originality that all the others are merely duplicates.

Natural Act For Mother

1910

Women Understand That Not Heroism but Simply Love Prompted Self Sacrifice

A few days ago, in a somewhat squalid neighborhood, a house caught fire. The flames shot quickly through the litter on the floor and the untidy array of clothing on the walls. A woman talking with a neighbor ran screaming to the house and without an instant's hesitation sprang through the smoking doorway into what already seemed an inferno. A moment later she staggered out, her hands and face blackened and blistered and her clothing on fire. In her arms she bore her baby, safe from harm.

The afternoon papers came out with the story, printed under headlines extolling this mother's heroism. Men read it on street cars, and as their eyes gleamed with the stirring of the spirit which leaps to greet noble deeds they said: "That woman dared to do what most men would be afraid to do." But the mothers who read it at home did not think that way. Perhaps the danger to the baby, the wrecking of the home and the burns the woman suffered brought moisture to their eyes, but to them the act was not one of heroism — it was simply what any natural mother, no matter how timid, would do under the same circumstances. — Cleveland Leader.


Lengthening Her Stay

Little May wanted permission to go somewhere, and her mother asked her if she would slay just a little while. May replied: "I'll stay two whiles, mamma."

Managing a Husband

1910

Men are like children; they want managing, although you must never let them dream that you think so. No child likes to be ordered about, no man will endure coercion. But managing! It is an art so subtle, so elusive, that few women understand even the rudiments of it.

Sisters mine, let us reason together, says Woman's Life. In every human being there is a spark of the divine; it is yours to fan that spark into a flame — that is managing a man — it is to get the very best out of him there is to have, and not two women in ten can do it. Do not think that there is anything unworthy in managing a man — to bring out the best is a high vocation.

Only let us see to it that we are worthy of it. There are women who have made angels of men, but at the cost of their own divinity. There is room for more than one unselfish person in a family.


His Bad Break

"Will you love me when I am old?" she whispered. "Didn't I tell you that I love you now?" he responded. And she didn't speak to him again for a whole week.


Not Risking a Quarrel

Heiress-Tell me truly, Arthur, is it your love or your reason prompts you to marry me? Arthur—Just as you like, dearest.


To Credit's Discredit

Business will have its periodical reverses so long as a man who couldn't pay cash for a wheelbarrow is able to buy an automobile on credit.

$25 Reward for Missing Wife

1911

Editorial Quips

An Illinois husband has offered a reward of $25 for the return of his missing wife. "That's all she is worth," she says. That is love.

The Marquis of Landsdowne's Rembrandt, valued at $500,000, may go into the National gallery and then again it may be brought to America.

A Chicago professor says that lack of money is the bane of wedlock. In the matter of feeling this lack as a bane, wedlock has plenty of company.

Nearly 2,000,000 brook trout fry are ready for planting in Wisconsin's streams. They will probably develop into 2,000,000 fish stories later in the year.

Australians have perfected the milking machine so that it milks a hundred cows in two hours. But the milkmaid will continue to live in poetry.

Flat-wheeled trolley cars and all auto horns are to be regulated in New York.

The center of population, unlike most of the sons of Indiana, remains in that state.

Brutality Better Than Ardent Love, Asserts Wife

1920

Smothered by Kisses

SAN FRANCISCO, Cal. — How much should you love your wife?

This is the absorbing question brought up here by the divorce action of Mrs. Leigh M. Stewart, who sues her husband, Commander Stewart, because he loved her too much.

The divorce courts are cluttered with actions because "love has died." Now there comes the reverse — the newer and absorbing question for a judge to determine: Just how much should a man love his wife?

A modern cave man was Commander Stewart, according to his wife. A cave man with gentle human kindness, but overpowering in his love.

"His love for me was so overpowering, so terrible in its intensity, that it killed my own love for him. As I look back over the period of five years of our married life something tells me if he had loved me less I could have loved him more.

"He was never satisfied unless he had me in his arms, kissing me. He never seemed to be able to caress me enough.

"Then we married. It is easily imagined how he won me by this love, but later, incessant as it became, it tired me. I was never free from the very awfulness of his love.

"Life became hateful. Can you imagine sitting at a breakfast table with a man who wouldn't permit you to eat because of the time it took from kissing? At luncheon he would have thought up a new love poem, the kind he always returned with from a sea voyage, and I would have to listen to it. Then at dinner it was more kissing, kisses, kisses, kisses.

"Not so very long ago I tired so utterly of his kisses that I asked him to leave me alone for a moment. He flew into a rage and choked me. I thought then that he was going to kill me, and I can nearer at that moment to loving him than in any of the long years of our married life.

"His caresses were so tiring that brutality was welcome."

Loss of Wife's Love Worse Than Jail

Feb. 1920

Released Spy Hopeless When He Learns She Will Rewed

SAN FRANCISCO — The highest hope of Wilhelm von Brincken, cherished by the former attache of the old German consulate in San Francisco during his twenty months' imprisonment for violation of American neutrality, was shattered upon his liberation a few days ago when he learned that his divorced wife was engaged to marry another.

"She is all I have been living for," said Von Brincken, referring to the beautiful Milo Ambercrombie, mother of his two children, who divorced him on patriotic grounds while he was serving his terms at McNeil's Island. "I had expected to effect a reconciliation, to take out citizenship papers and to father my children in the land I love above all others. Now — with these other plans — I am too shocked to think."

The former Mrs. Von Brincken, who has resumed her maiden name, has announced her forthcoming marriage to Lieut. Lyman K. Swenson of the United States Navy.


Demands $500 for Snow Bath

WOOD CENTER, N. Y. — Byron Smith went to the depot here to take the train to Yonkers. He purchased his ticket and a few minutes later heard the approaching train. As he left the depot a quantity of snow fell from the roof of the building completely burying him. Smith crawled out and went home. He demands $500 for his snow bath and says the company must pay.

40 Year-Old Wife Of Boy Husband Will Fight Divorce

1914

Des Moines, Iowa, Jan. 14. — Mrs. Maude Kinney-Patrick-Bates, through attorneys has signified her intention of contesting the application of Charles Bates, her 16-year-old husband, to have the marriage to his 40-year-old wife set aside.

The case was to have been heard yesterday by Judge Hugh Brennan of the district court. Until yesterday Mrs. Patrick has remained silent and it was presumed young Bates would secure the annulment by default.

Attorneys C. C. Dowell and John McLennan have entered their appearances in the case and Bates was denied the chance to secure the annulment without a fight.

The case attracted considerable attention some time ago when Bates alleged he had been lured into marrying a woman twice his age through continued protestations of love on her part. They went to Chicago and were married under assumed names; he as Charles Buford and she as Frances Kinney. Since their return to Des Moines they have not lived together.

With the entrance of the two attorneys into the case it is probable Mrs. Patrick will file her answer to the charges made by her boy husband in a short time.