The Serial Husband of Thurston County
A young farmer faces divorce after a string of marriages to elderly widows, claiming he simply cannot resist their proposals.
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.
George F. Littlewood is one of the most unique characters in Thurston county. He is a young farmer living near Woodland who has appeared before the public several times, his last appearance being in a suit for divorce from his third wife, one of three aged widows he married successively. Littlewood's first wife was a woman 80 years of age. She only survived the honeymoon. After her death, when the minister called and found the young husband weeping, he asked: 'My good young man, did your mother die happy?' 'My mother,' ejaculated Littlewood, 'she was my wife!' After this he married the widow of Harry Howard, who was sent to the penitentiary from this county and committed suicide there. He was married to the Widow Howard 16 days and then secured a divorce. His third wife was Widow Mary E. Carrier, who had a family of grown sons. It was an altercation with one of these stepsons that led to the last divorce suit, in which Littlewood was granted a decree by default recently. Littlewood frankly admits his weakness for aged women, and says when the latter approach him and ask him to marry them he is unable to resist.
“My good young man, did your mother die happy? My mother, she was my wife!”
While presented as a colorful local oddity in 1903, the case reflects the era's fascination with domestic scandals and the legal fluidity of marriage in early Washington, where divorce and remarriage cycles were frequently grist for the local press mill.
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