Two Women Seek Freedom from Marital Abuse
In an era of restrictive legal options, two Seattle women successfully sue for divorce on grounds of cruelty and abandonment.
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.
Although yesterday was not the regular divorce day in the superior court, Judge Humes granted the prayers of two discontented wives and gave them release from their husbands. The first applicant was Lena Winandy, the wife of Joseph Winandy, a Ballard carpenter. She testified that he treated her unkindly and drank to excess. She married him in April, 1900, and lived with him until June last, when he came home one night in a state of intoxication, pulled her out of bed by the ankles and stood her on her head, threatening at the same time to blow her brains out. Martha Stringham was granted a divorce from Thomas H. Stringham; he deserted her in 1879, and for fourteen years she had supported herself, accumulating some property in Kitsap county, which was awarded to her as her sole estate.
“He came home one night in a state of intoxication, pulled her out of bed by the ankles and stood her on her head.”
Divorce was a major legal hurdle for women in the 1890s, often requiring evidence of extreme physical cruelty or years of desertion. Martha Stringham’s success in retaining property she earned while her husband was absent is a notable example of women navigating a patriarchal legal system to secure economic independence.
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