She Thought Her First Husband Was Dead. He Wasn’t.
A Seattle woman seeks to annul her second marriage after learning the man she believed dead—and the man who had actually died—were not the same person.
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.
Delia E. Hammond is the wife of Charles A. Hammond, of this city, and has been divorced from neither of her husbands, and yet she may be accused of polyandry. The facts were revealed yesterday by a petition filed in the superior court for a decree annulling her marriage to Charles A. Hammond. The woman had been married to Andrew Wise, a resident of this city, about 1883. Through non-support she became separated from him, and in order to obtain employment removed to California. Years afterward Mrs. Wise heard news that Andrew Wise had died in 1889, and as she had not received any word from him nor could learn anything of his whereabouts, further than the fact that she had been informed of his death, she was satisfied that he was dead. Then she met Hammond, and for the past four years has faithfully performed the duties of a wife. Four months ago the couple were thunderstruck to learn that Andrew Wise, the first husband, was still living, and that the Andrew Wise who died was an uncle of her husband. The marriage with Hammond was contracted in good faith and in the belief that no legal impediment existed. Since learning that Wise was not dead, Mr. and Mrs. Hammond have lived apart. There are no children, and the proposed solution of the problem is to annul the marriage with the second husband.
“Four months ago the couple were thunderstruck to learn that Andrew Wise, the first husband, was still living, and that the Andrew Wise who died was an uncle of her husband.”
The case turns on a legal nightmare that still exists: what happens when a spouse presumed dead turns up alive. Washington’s annulment and bigamy laws, then as now, have to sort good-faith marriages from impossible ones.
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