The Bigamist of White Bluffs
A local marriage is legally dissolved after the groom is revealed to have a secret history of multiple wives.
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.
An order entered in the Superior Court at Prosser on Wednesday annulled the marriage ceremony performed in White Bluffs Nov. 8, 1921, intended to unite in wedlock Guy Chapple and Miss Daisy Gruetzmacher, both at that time residents of White Bluffs. Several months after the ceremony and after the couple had moved to Seattle, Chapple was arrested and pled guilty to a charge of bigamy, having failed to secure a divorce from the last of three wives whom he had previously married. He was sentenced to the penitentiary at Walla Walla and served 12 months for the crime. He returned to White Bluffs a short time ago, having completed his sentence. Although the marriage of Chapple to Miss Gruetzmacher was illegal, it was deemed advisable to have the annulment proceedings in order to clarify the records as both the marriage license and wedding certificate had been recorded.
“Although the marriage of Chapple to Miss Gruetzmacher was illegal, it was deemed advisable to have the annulment proceedings in order to clarify the records.”
Public records of marriage and divorce remain essential to legal life, but this case highlights how much the 'paper trail' of early 20th-century life relied on localized, often manual coordination between jurisdictions like Prosser, Seattle, and Walla Walla.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.