The Schoolteacher, the Prison Term, and the Divorce
A Seattle judge frees Irene B. Mead from her imprisoned husband and awards her custody of six children.
The wife of a polygamist was set free from a galling matrimonial tie in Judge Langley's court in a very few minutes yesterday. She was Irene B. Mead, whose husband, Albert A. Mead, is now serving a three-year term in the Oregon penitentiary from his own confession of the crime. Mead was tried in November before Thomas A. McBride, judge of the circuit court for Washington County, at Hillsboro, and the circumstances of the case showed that he had been living with a pretty school teacher. By her pretty face and personal attractions, it was said, Mead had secured the coin—the school teacher and a term in the state's prison—and now he loses his wife. There are six children ranging in age from 11 to 1, all with their mother in this city. They were awarded to her. Mead was married at Mankato, Minn., February 21, 1881.
“The wife of a polygamist was set free from a galling matrimonial tie in Judge Langley's court in a very few minutes yesterday.”
The item treats a prison sentence, a secret relationship and a divorce as one domestic catastrophe. It is a reminder that incarceration reaches far beyond the person sentenced—and that custody, infidelity and money still shape family law, even after Washington moved to no-fault divorce.
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