He Burned the Deed to Prove His Love — Then Sold Her House for $1
A Tacoma wife says her husband coaxed her into signing away the family home, torched the paper to win her back, and secretly sold the property to his son.
Tacoma, May 22. Special — Mrs. Emma Kluckow, in a complaint filed today in the superior court against her husband, Johannes Kluckow, and her stepson, Johannes J. Kluckow, tells a pitiful story.
Mrs. Kluckow alleges in her complaint that after her marriage to her husband they acquired some property by purchase, the money for which she helped to earn and save. The property lies in a land company's sixth addition, upon which is a comfortable dwelling, which was the family home. After the deed reached the husband he coerced her into signing the property over to him, and as soon as he had made himself the sole owner, he drove her away from the house. He afterward promised her to return to him, and to convince her of his good intentions, he burned the deed she had transferred to him, saying: "We will burn up our trouble."
She supposed from this act that she again came into possession of her share of the community property, but Kluckow had, unknown to her, recorded the deed. While she was gone last January he transferred the whole of the property to his son, Johannes J., the consideration stated in the deed as $1.
The wife now asks the court to set aside the transfer to Kluckow's son and to reinstate her rights as an owner in the realty. The case will probably come up for hearing at the next term.
“We will burn up our trouble.”
The paper frames it as a wife wronged, but at bottom it is the same enduring problem: who actually owns the home when a marriage sours, and how easily a deed can be used to strip one partner of everything. Washington's community-property rules were still being worked out in the courts, and stories like this one helped define them.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.