A Divorce Suit Exposes Brutality—and a Fight Over the House
Mary C. Fisher accused her husband of choking her and tearing her clothes in front of her daughter; she asked the court for a divorce, the house and all the property.
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Mary C. Fisher commenced suit yesterday to secure a divorce from her husband, Charles Fisher, on the ground of cruelty and brutality. The two were married in Seattle June 26, 1889, and have no children, but Mrs. Fisher was a widow with one child, a girl now 16 years old. She accuses Fisher of cruel treatment as the result of his violent temper, calling her names in the presence of others, choking her repeatedly and tearing her clothes from her body, doing all these things in the presence of her daughter.
Husband and wife are owners of personal property worth $400. When she married him he owned two unimproved lots in the Motor Line addition, which since marriage have been improved with a one-story dwelling worth $300, the lots standing in his name. Since their marriage they have also acquired two lots in [??] addition to [??], which she says he gave to her; also two lots in the Washington Park addition to New Whatcom which stand in his name. She claims that all of the property, except the two lots in the Motor Line addition, was acquired by them since the marriage.
She asks a divorce, all the property decreed as her own, the use of the house and furniture and a restraining order enjoining him from interfering with her or her property. Judge Langley issued an order allowing her the use of the house and furniture during the pendency of the action and restraining him from going near her or interfering with her in any way.
“She accuses Fisher of cruel treatment as the result of his violent temper, calling her names in the presence of others, choking her repeatedly and tearing her clothes from her body, doing all these things in the presence of her daughter.”
The case reads as a grimly familiar domestic-violence file: abuse witnessed by a child, a fight over the house and a court order meant to keep a husband away. It also shows how property often decided whether a woman's account of cruelty could be heard.
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