A 20-Year Marriage Ends in 'Uncontrollable Aversion'
Jennie S. Holmes asks a Seattle court for divorce, saying she and her husband cannot endure each other's company—and lets their two children choose whom to live with.
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.
M. M. Holmes was yesterday made defendant in an action for divorce by Jennie S. Holmes, who says there is an utter incompatibility of temper so great that she and her husband have not only ceased to have any affection for each other, but that each has acquired an uncontrollable aversion for the other, so that companionship is unendurable and impossible. The couple have been residents of Seattle for more than three years, but are not now living together. They were married September 13, 1870, at Dunbarton, N.H., and are now the parents of two children, Kate M. and Carl S. Holmes, aged respectively 20 and 18. Mrs. Holmes asks that no order be made respecting the children, but that they be allowed each to choose between the father and the mother. She also asks for the personal property and household goods in the family home.
“Each has acquired an uncontrollable aversion for the other, so that companionship is unendurable and impossible.”
In 1893 a Seattle divorce had to be argued as fault—here, 'incompatibility' and 'uncontrollable aversion'—long before Washington became a no-fault state. The request that the children choose between their parents also sounds a surprisingly modern note about custody and children's agency.
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