An Interracial Marriage Scandal in Whatcom
A young man files for divorce, alleging his wealthy widow wife treated him as a menial servant and schemed to discard him for a new husband.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A sensation has been created by the filing of an action for divorce by Harry J. Ruse against the widow of the late Calvin Keesling, formerly chairman of the board of county commissioners, who died in the insane asylum at Steilacoom. Ruse is a mulatto about 22 years of age, and was Mrs. Keesling's coachman at the time of her husband's death. The complaint recites that after persistent solicitation on the part of the widow and numerous tempting inducements held out to the plaintiff to overcome his scruples on account of the difference in race, color and social standing and the great disparity of ages, the widow being 46, the two were married in Winnipeg on September 5, 1892. The wedded pair then visited the plaintiff's relatives in Illinois and the defendant's relatives in New York. While there, the complaint recites, defendant refused to be recognized as the plaintiff's wife, although she cohabited with him as such, and demanded that he serve her as a menial. She tried to force him to go to the Sandwich Islands so she might the better negotiate for a fifth husband; that upon a false accusation she procured his incarceration in jail at Saratoga, where he was shamefully abused, and that after threatening to send him to the penitentiary for assault unless he would deny the marriage, she made him return $400 and a gold watch and then sent him to Chicago to shift for himself. But instead, he came direct to the garden where his tempter first met him and filed suit for a divorce and a division of the estate, which is represented to be worth $20,000.
“The widow is on the trail of another victim. Public sympathy here is decidedly with Ruse, who seems now to fully appreciate the wisdom of the elder Weller's advice to his son Samuel to 'beware of vidders.'”
This case offers a rare, albeit hostile, glimpse into the life of a mixed-race couple in 1890s Washington. While the contemporary reporting uses disparaging language to frame the marriage as a 'scandal,' the underlying legal record highlights the intersection of race, gender, and power dynamics of the era.
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