The Millionaire Who Came Back: A Wife, Two Husbands and a Double Divorce
Margaret Broderick thought Frank Berwert was murdered. Four years into a new marriage, he appeared at her door—alive, wealthy, and legally still her husband.
Montesano — After four years of happiness with her second husband, their union blessed by a baby boy, Mrs. Margaret Broderick met face to face in the doorway of her own home, Frank Berwert, her first husband, now a millionaire, whom she supposed dead years ago.
As a result, a double-headed divorce action has been filed here, the first on record in the county. Mrs. Broderick is seeking to sever whatever legal ties bind her to both men.
On February 5, 1902, she married Berwert in San Francisco and a year later he disappeared. In 1905 she was told by his sisters that he had been murdered while at work in a camp on the Russian River in California. She visited the camp and was shown a grave which she was told was that of her husband. On December 19, 1905, she was married to Edwin Broderick and shortly afterward came to Washington. Fortune has smiled on Berwert since he disappeared, and his wealth is now said to run into the millions.
“After four years of happiness with her second husband ... Mrs. Margaret Broderick met face to face in the doorway of her own home, Frank Berwert, her first husband, now a millionaire, whom she supposed dead years ago.”
The case is a reminder that before searchable records and no-fault divorce, presumed death and remarriage could create legal knots with no easy untangling. It also shows how a local paper treated a woman's private catastrophe as front-page society news.
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