Puyallup Woman Wins Divorce—and Keeps Her Land
May Peone, daughter of Chief Peter Stanup, is granted an absolute divorce in Tacoma court while her 160 acres and city lots remain in view.
After a brief hearing in Judge Chapman's court yesterday afternoon, Mrs. May Peone, daughter of Chief Peter Stanup of the Puyallup tribe of Chinooks, was granted an absolute decree of divorce from Ignac B. Peone. The charge was incompatibility, and Peone allowed the case to go by default. He is a member of a Montana tribe of Indians and the couple lived for more than a year in Tekoa, in the Coeur d'Alene reservation.
Some time ago, however, they separated and Mrs. Peone came to the Puyallup reservation to live with her parents. She owns 160 acres in the Coeur d'Alene reservation and lots 19 and 20, McKinley Park addition, Tacoma, besides being heir to her father's estate. Stanup is the wealthiest Indian on Puget Sound, it is claimed.
“She owns 160 acres in the Coeur d'Alene reservation and lots 19 and 20, McKinley Park addition, Tacoma, besides being heir to her father's estate.”
The brief item records a Native woman using the courts on her own terms and lays out her property holdings at a time when Indigenous people were navigating both tribal and settler legal systems. The era's patronizing language is part of the record, but the story belongs to May Peone's legal victory and land.
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