“While You Wait” (A Play from The Smart Set, June 1900)

March 26, 2019June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

“While You Wait” (By Charles Newton Hood) – The Smart Set (June 1900)

SCENE—The cozy breakfast-room in the home of MR. and MRS. RICHARD JAMES VAN CLEEF. Young MR. VAN CLEEF strolls in and is considerably surprised to discover that his charming wife has preceded him, and, what is more, is placidly awaiting his arrival before ordering her own matutinal repast; such a thing being so unusual that MR. VAN CLEEF could scarcely tell the date of its last occurrence; and, furthermore, MRS. VAN CLEEF appears to be mildly interested in his arrival.

MR. VAN CLEEF (in a rather perfunctory way, as he drops into his chair and selects his favorite morning newspaper from the pile by the side of his place)—This is an unexpected pleasure.

Pretty little MRS. VAN CLEEF only smiles in response and rings for breakfast. After the meal is well under way, and MR. VAN CLEEF is beginning to enjoy his coffee—experiencing the odd sensation of having MRS. VAN CLEEF pour it, instead of James, and smiling to discover that she really has forgotten how many lumps of sugar he prefers and how little cream-he is surprised, in the midst of a financial article he is reading in a paper propped up against the fruit dish, to discover that MRS. VAN CLEEF is not partaking of food, but is regarding him with a troubled look. MR. VAN CLEEF glances up inquiringly.

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Dick, we’ve done our parts remarkably well, haven’t we?

MR. VAN CLEEF—I don’t exactly understand.

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Why, I mean, since we talked it all over three years ago, and decided that we had both made the same mistake—that we were never intended for each other, after all, but that, being married, we’d got to make the best of it. We’ve acted our parts admirably to the world, so that it is doubtful if anyone really suspects that we are not still enjoying an indefinitely extended honeymoon. We have done some remarkably clever acting, for amateurs, and it seems to me that we deserve all of the “good notices” we get in the society columns.

MR. VAN CLEEF does not respond in words, but he looks troubled.

MRS. VAN CLEEF (as if in answer to a protest)—No, Dick, I’m not going to go over the whole story again. Don’t think it! We married because I was old Emprett’s only daughter—tolerably good-looking they used to say—and you were Mr. Richard James Van Cleef, son of the same, and descendant of a long line of Van Cleefs running back a good many generation without ever getting out of alignment; the best catch of the Summer of ’92. The walks and talks, and dances and swims, and books and looks, and moons and spoons, and boating and tennis and all that sort of thing we enjoyed together at Oderkonsett that Summer we thought had developed a sincere and undying affection, and we were really and truly surprised when we discovered, after something over a year of constant companionship, how much we bored each other. I think we were wise, as things looked to us then, to come to the decision we did: to make the best of it; but just tolerably good friends in private, but to keep up the romance so far as other people were concerned. As I say, we’ve done it very credibly. You’ve been very nice to me, and helped me nobly each time we have had to entertain together, and I’ve tried to be everything that could be expected of me except a loving and devoted companion. I’ve never flirted, to speak of, and they do say, Dick, that you have settled down wonderfully since you were married. It has all be done beautifully.

MR. VAN CLEEF (with a puzzled expression)—Well?

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Be patient. We decided, on coming to our senses, that we didn’t really love each other at all. You don’t love me now, do you?

MR. VAN CLEEF—Dear! Dear! What is the use of all this? What is the—

MRS. VAN CLEEF—One moment, please. I’ve really got quite deep reasons for it all. (To servant) No, James, we don’t need anything. I shall ring if we do. You see, Dick, I’ve got my plans all laid along a certain line, and I must follow that line or I may get mixed up. You must be very accommodating and answer every question. Now, you don’t really love me at all, do you?

MR. VAN CLEEF—Why, of course, I—

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Now, be honest, speak right out—square-toed, plain, commonsense, hygienic, French-toed without a patent-leather tip, I might say. You know you don’t love me, and why not say so?

MR. VAN CLEEF—Well, then, I don’t.

MRS. VAN CLEEF—That’s right. Not the least little bit in the world?

MR. VAN CLEEF—Why, I suppose—

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Come, come, be honest.

MR. VAN CLEEF (actually grinning a little at the peculiar cross-examination)—Well, then, not the least little bit in the world.

MRS. VAN CLEEF (clapping her hands together ecstatically in front of her face and laughing in a way young MR. VAN CLEEF used to think very charming indeed)—Neither do I you, not the least little bit in the world—not the very least. You’re an awfully nice fellow, and I like you about as well as I do anybody, but I don’t Love you, with a large L, and you don’t Love me, with a large L, and there you are. I wanted to get it all thoroughly understood before I divulged my great plan. Don’t you think that, after all, we’re sort of foolish?

MR. VAN CLEEF—Why, I don’t know; under the circumstances—

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Yes, yes. That’s all right; but we’re young and—nice—and all that, and, someway, do you know, it seems to me that we ought to be privileged to fall in love if we wanted to and—

MR. VAN CLEEF (thinking he sees a light)—Oh, that’s—

MRS. VAN CLEEF (hastily)—Now you’re wrong. You’re wrong. I haven’t fallen in love with anybody, and I don’t suppose that you have, but even if we wanted to, either one of us, we mustn’t, and it doesn’t seem as if we’re being fair to ourselves.

MR. VAN CLEEF—Well?

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Well, I have been looking into the matter a little and I think it could all be arranged very nicely and easily, and everything would be lovely. The circular says—

MR. VAN CLEEF—The circular?

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you. I wrote to some lawyers in Dakota and Oklahoma, who call themselves “Divorce Specialists,” and advertise “Divorces While You Wait;” and, really, the way they put it, all you have to do to get a divorce is just to go out there and spend a few months enjoying the lovely climate and all that, and come back divorced. I think—

MR. VAN CLEEF (excitedly)—Do you mean to say, Mrs. Van Cleef, that you have been writing to those sharks on the subject of divorce?

MRS. VAN CLEEF (placidly)—Why, certainly; but, of course, not in my own name, my dear. Annette attended to that, and I had the letters come to Mrs. J. J. Jones in care of a private post-office on the other side of the city. Annette got the letters for me, but she doesn’t know anything at all about what was in them. I was very particular about that.

MR. VAN CLEEF (with a resigned gasp)—Well, I should hope so. Go on.

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Now, in this divorce business, there seems to be a great rivalry between South Dakota and Oklahoma, but the Oklahoma firm’s circular is a good deal the more enticing. Listen. It says (she reads from a circular which she takes from her pocket): “Our newer States, in compiling their laws, have seen fit to show more liberality in the matter of obtaining divorces than may be found among the older states, whose laws on this subject were enacted at a time when ideas were less in accord with the advanced liberal thought of the present.

“As the Mohammedan devotee confidingly turns his eyes toward the tomb of his beloved leader, so has Dakota been regarded as the Mecca of hope to weary companions in matrimony.”

Isn’t that nice? We’ll be the weary companions.

“But,” it says, “Dakota can no longer claim this undivided homage. In the still newer but none the less advanced Commonwealth of Oklahoma she has met a rival, and a fair comparison must show largely to the advantage of the sometime State, and, while the divorce laws are almost identical, the many physical advantages of Oklahoma place her in the lead at once.

“Contemplate, in comparison to the storm-swept plains of Dakota, the picturesqueness of Oklahoma’s ever varying scenery, her fertile fields and blooming prairies, fringed with beautiful groves and ribbed with many a rippling brook. Here nestles the newborn child of the Republic in all her virgin beauty, and here, almost in the centre of the Union, you may enjoy the luxuries of civilization and the rugged beauties of nature while shuffling off the unworthy partner. Here the pleasure seeker and naturalist, while waiting his or her divorce, may revel amid the delights of mountain scenery and explore the caves and cañons so lately the haunts of outlaws. Here the lover of the chase may vent his ardor in pursuit of deer, bear, antelope and mountain lion, while grouse, quail, ducks and geese are plentiful and the streams abound in fish peculiar to Western and Southern waters. The hotels are,” etc., etc.

Isn’t that nice? It says we have to live there only ninety days before we can get a divorce and be as free as the glorious air of Oklahoma. All we have to swear to is that we are uncongenial and incompatible, and you swear that you are a poor, neglected husband, and I’ll swear that I am a poor, neglected wife, and we’ll go out there for a little vacation, and you can hunt and explore and neglect me and be uncongenial and incompatible, and I’ll climb mountains and fish and be incompatible and uncongenial and neglect you, and we’ll have just a lovely time, and there won’t be any scandal, and when we come back we’ll just be good friends and make a joke of it, and you can go your way and I’ll go mine, and—What do you think of it?

MR. VAN CLEEF (looking rather grave)—Why, I have never given the subject thought. It is easily enough arranged, evidently, and if you particularly desire it—

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Now, now; don’t throw it all on me, please, Dick, just because I happened to think the plan all out. Say “we.”

MR. VAN CLEEF—Well, “we,” then. As I say, I haven’t had a chance to think it over, but I suppose, considering the way our lives have been lived for the past few years, it would be the wisest thing to do.

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Why, certainly; and I’ve never seen all that Western country at all, and it would be just a lovely trip and outing for us. A sort of farewell tour, you know. When shall we start?

MR. VAN CLEEF (entering more into the spirit of the thing)—Why, if we’re going, we might as well start to-morrow as any time. I don’t suppose they have special excursion rates at regular intervals for parties seeking divorce, have they?

MRS. VAN CLEEF—I don’t suppose so, but it would be an idea for the railroads, wouldn’t it? Sell a round trip ticket for a fare and a third, including a coupon good for one absolute divorce.

MR. VAN CLEEF—Yes, and there could be personally conducted, special car lots of divorce-hunting couples, and we could flirt desperately on the way out and maybe come back married to somebody else.

MRS. VAN CLEEF (gravely)—I don’t believe we’d want to associate much with other people who were looking for divorces, because they might not be as—nice as we are, with their “grounds” taken from the Ten Commandments.

MR. VAN CLEEF—M-m-m. It won’t be necessary to make any special preparations for the trip, will it?

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Oh, no, indeed. I don’t suppose we’ll be going out much, and we’ll be roughing it, near to nature’s heart, while we’re waiting. I don’t suppose there’s any special divorce costume necessary.

MR. VAN CLEEF—There really ought to be. Why shouldn’t divorces eventually become a regular social function, the same as swell weddings, to “accord with the advanced liberal thought of the present”?

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Yes, indeed. The society columns ought to write them up, the same as they do weddings. Wouldn’t this sound pleasant? (She snatches up a paper and, holding it upside down, pretends to read.)

“A CHARMING DIVORCE

“Mr. and Mrs. Richard James Van Cleef were divorced yesterday morning in the presence of a small company of invited guests, the occasion being one of the most delightful absolute divorce ceremonies seen in Oklahoma this season. Justice Van Brun officiated in his usual impressive manner, his remarks and advice at the close being most felicitous. The couple were divorced standing before a magnificent floral design representing ‘Liberty.’ Mrs. Van Cleef wore a simple yet wonderfully becoming traveling gown of changeable green, and Mr. Van Cleef was attired in the conventional costume for morning divorces. The fair divorcée entered leaning upon the arm of her venerable attorney, but Mr. Van Cleef was entirely unattended. After receiving the congratulations of their many friends,” etc.

Wouldn’t that be nice? But I presume that we can get all we’ll want to take in one trunk.

MR. VAN CLEEF—One trunk? Well, I guess not. We’d fight over who should have it coming back.

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Why, that’s so. I never thought of that. We’ll take two small trunks, then.

MR. VAN CLEEF—As long as we are going right through Chicago, we might stop over there—

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Not to get—it—the papers, you don’t mean?

MR. VAN CLEEF—Oh, no; but we haven’t been there since the Fair. Our honeymoon was bright and new then.

MRS. VAN CLEEF (pensively)—Oh, wasn’t it pretty?

MR. VAN CLEEF—What, the moon?

MRS. VAN CLEEF—No, no. The Fair—the grounds, the buildings, and the water. They say nearly every vestige of it is gone now.

MR. VAN CLEEF—Like our honeymoon.

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Seems a pity, doesn’t it? Do you remember how we floated around the lagoon in the gondola that night of the illumination? Wasn’t it just too enchanting?

MR. VAN CLEEF—It was, it was. And we thought we were happy.

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Why, we were happy!

MR. VAN CLEEF—Were we? It’s so long ago. We’ll go and see the place, anyway.

MRS. VAN CLEEF—I suppose we ought to divide the furnishings and other things we own in common before we go, oughtn’t we?

MR. VAN CLEEF—I suppose it would be less embarrassing. Let me see, what do we own in common?

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Why, there’s the big leather chair—

MR. VAN CLEEF—Oh, yes; the chair. May I have that?

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Oh, no, Dick. I couldn’t spare that. Don’t you remember, we bought it together and ordered it made especially wide and easy, so that we could both sit in it together before the fire in the library? Don’t you remember?

MR. VAN CLEEF—Oh, yes, I remember. I thought I’d sort of like it as a memento.

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Would you? Well, of course you shall have it, but ‘twill break my heart to part with it. And of course you will take your books and I shall take mine. That’s easy.

MR. VAN CLEEF—And the pictures?

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Oh, dear me, dear me! We bought almost every one of them together. You choose one first.

MR. VAN CLEEF—I’ll take that marine, “Break, Break, Break.” That ought to be appropriate, under the circumstances.

MRS. VAN CLEEF (with a little gasp)—Why, Dick, that was the very first one we bought. Don’t you remember, we bought it, because I liked it, of the artist himself, and you sulked because I raved over the artist’s hair and eyes, and—

MR. VAN CLEEF—Yes, the confounded little whipper-snapper. I never could abide that sort of men.

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Neither can I, but they’re pretty to rave about. We almost quarreled. Do you remember?

MR. VAN CLEEF—Yes. That was the first time.

MRS. VAN CLEEF—And I cried and cried, and you didn’t know what to do, and walked the floor, and by-and-by—

MR. VAN CLEEF—I went and tore your hands away from your eyes—

MRS. VAN CLEEF—And made me let you kiss the tears away.

MR. VAN CLEEF—U-m-m. Now you choose one.

MRS. VAN CLEEF—I’ll take—let me see—“The Elopement.”

MR. VAN CLEEF—But that’s yours, anyway.

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Why, so it is! You gave it to me on our first anniversary. How pleased I was! We were awfully happy, weren’t we?

MR. VAN CLEEF—We thought we were.

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Why, we were. We ought to be happy now.

MR. VAN CLEEF—We will be, as soon as the knot is untied.

MRS. VAN CLEEF—I wonder if we will?

MR. VAN CLEEF—Why, of course!

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Doesn’t it seem strange?

MR. VAN CLEEF—It do so—it do so.

MRS. VAN CLEEF—What made us get tired of each other, I wonder?

MR. VAN CLEEF—Well, it was like this: The first time I came home drunk from the club you—

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Why, Dick Van Cleef, you never came home drunk to me in your life!

MR. VAN CLEEF—Didn’t I? Well, I have been neglectful, haven’t I? I give it up.

MRS. VAN CLEEF—We just got tired of each other, that’s all. Never mind the dividing. Let’s just plan our trip.

MR. VAN CLEEF—Shall we stop at Niagara Falls?

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Oh, let’s! And go to every last place we went to when we stopped there on our wedding trip—Goat Island, and the Three Sisters, and the Whirlpool Rapids, and under the Falls, and the Cave of the Winds, and everywhere.

MR. VAN CLEEF—And we certainly ought to go to Luna Island.

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Do you remember the guide telling us about the French couple who couldn’t speak English, and of how he came back from Third Sister Island alone and said that his wife and fallen in, and then afterward confessed that he wanted to get rid of her and had dared her to kneel down and drink out of the rapids, and then, when she tried to do it, he pushed her in?

MR. VAN CLEEF—Yes, I remember. Too bad he didn’t know about Oklahoma!

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Aren’t you a horrid thing!

MR. VAN CLEEF—I am, indeed. And shall we take the Great Lakes trip to Chicago again, too?

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Oh, yes, let’s. We did enjoy that so, didn’t we? I do love the water so! The moonlight evenings on deck and—

MR. VAN CLEEF—You probably won’t sit on the deck and go to sleep with your head on my shoulder, as you did on one of the said moonlight nights, will you?

MRS. VAN CLEEF (pensively)—You wouldn’t want me to.

MR. VAN CLEEF—We used to sit there on deck in the evenings for hours without speaking a word. We could do that all right now.

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Why, we were just too happy to speak; and besides, we didn’t need to. When you squeezed my hand and I squeezed your hand back again, it meant everything that we could possibly say.

MR. VAN CLEEF—And now, when we sit up there, I can box your ears and you can slap my face, and that will express everything, just the same, without a word being spoken.

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Oh, Dick, don’t! Our dear, dead love ought to be sacred, and we did know, because, don’t you remember, we tried it once, and when I squeezed your hand you told me exactly what I was thinking, and when you squeezed my hand back again, I told you. It was a kind of telepathy.

MR. VAN CLEEF—I wonder if it would work now?

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Perhaps.

MR. VAN CLEEF (going around behind his wife’s chair and taking one of her hands in his)—Now.

MRS. VAN CLEEF (gently, almost timidly, pressing her husband’s hand)—Now, what am I thinking?

MR. VAN CLEEF (promptly)—You are thinking what a pair of fools we’ve been to make ourselves believe that we didn’t love each other, when we really did, down in our hearts, all of the time, only we were too proud to admit it.

MRS. VAN CLEEF (with a little gasp)—Why, that’s exactly right! Oh, Dick, do you? Do you?

MR. VAN CLEEF (dropping on one knee beside his wife’s chair and choking a little)—Yes, darling.

MRS. VAN CLEEF—And shall we begin all over again and not want any divorce at all—while we wait?

MR. VAN CLEEF (with his arm around his wife’s waist)—Yes, dearest. But why not take the trip, just the same?

MRS. VAN CLEEF—Oh, yes; let’s take one every year at just this time—

MR. VAN CLEEF—And call them our regular annual farewell tours. We’ll start to-morrow.

MRS. VAN CLEEF—With one trunk.

Helen Churchill Candee – An Introduction

March 25, 2019June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Helen Churchill Candee was born in 1858 as Helen Churchill (her mother’s maiden name) Hungerford of New York. Her father was a successful merchant, and Helen grew up in relative comfort both there and in Connecticut where the family moved shortly thereafter. More important than the physical provisions prosperity allowed, she was exposed to ideas and stories, music and art, history and culture, in ways unlikely to have been possible had she lived a generation before, or anywhere else.

Helen started her formal education in one of America’s first kindergartens, then attended several girls’ boarding schools of the sort only available to a certain quality of family – and even then mostly only those in New England. Before she was a teenager she spoke and wrote multiple languages, was schooled in grace and etiquette, and probably knew more history and literature than a majority of adult men in the nation at the time. She was particularly inspired, according to one diary entry, by an event at which Charles Dickens read aloud from one of his works.

How many of you have heard Dickens live? My point exactly.

She was born into the right sort of family in the right part of the country at a pretty good time to become what she became. While her life was not without suffering or tragedy, neither did she rise from rags and neglect to riches and fame. Upbringing mattered, as did education and opportunity.

None of which detracts from her choices, hard work, or natural abilities, of course. Sometimes you gotta shake what your mama gave you if you really want it to rain.

Er… as it were.

Helen fell in love with successful businessman Edward Candee of Connecticut; they married in 1880 shortly after she turned 22. For 15 years, Edward was able to continue and expand the lifestyle to which Helen had grown accustomed. They traveled and they entertained – and not in that desperate, Gatsby-sort-of-way we read about a generation later. The Candees didn’t use their money to imitate or buy culture; they used their resources to live and support culture. They were all the best things about having money.

But there was one little problem. Henry turned out to be short-tempered and perhaps a bit abusive. Details are thin, and even court records potentially suspect (testimony having been given in order to secure a divorce and all), but apparently he drank excessively and often exploded at Helen and the kids, Edith and Harold. Eventually, Helen decided to leave.

The thing was, in addition to the substantial social stigma of divorce in the 19th century, it was difficult to do, legally and logistically. Helen hired a private detective to follow Henry on his various business trips, and while recorded accusations lean a bit euphemistic, she went to court in New York convinced she had sufficient proof of his unfaithfulness and/or abusiveness to secure her freedom.

The court did not agree. And now it was in the papers – public records being public and all.

Here’s where specifics of time and place insert themselves into the equation yet again. Divorce was inherently difficult across most of the civilized northeast, but there were places further west quite proud of their liberal un-marrying laws. The Dakotas had become the traditional vacation spot for those wishing to reboot their personal narratives with minimal time and effort – residency there could be established in a mere six months, and the courts were reputedly generous when it came to breaking sacred bonds. Lawyers and boosters in other western states advertised the comfort and convenience of their hotels, their climate, their recreation… and for several decades, capitalism’s wonders were fully unleashed in service of mommy not loving daddy anymore.

Oklahoma Territory had them all beat, however. Ninety days – that’s how long you needed to establish residency. Three short months and you were eligible to file. If your soon-to-be ex didn’t show, the court appointed someone to speak on his or her behalf, whether they knew their “client” or not. Generally, things were wrapped up in time to grab some lunch before getting back to watching lazy hawks circle in the sky and whatnot.

Boasting of being a divorce mill in order to build your population wasn’t necessarily anything to be proud of, but then neither was getting a divorce. Helen secured transportation for herself, Edith, and Harold, and off they went to the most hoppingest, happeningest, big-little metropolis of the entire Territory…

Guthrie.

It’s here that Act One of her public story really begins. Helen wasn’t going to play the wounded woman or become someone’s mercy case. She had a family to support, and looking around, she had a pretty good idea where to begin.

She was going to tell the world about Oklahoma. For money. Turns out she was quite good at it.

Candee had a gift for observing people and a writing about them in amusing, poignant, and illuminating ways. She’d already established herself as a mildly successful writer for various periodicals back east – mostly women’s magazines, writing about upscale etiquette, effective management of one’s household, and other traditionally “female” topics, with a smattering of general human interest type pieces.

She’d also just published her first book – How Women May Earn A Living (1900). This practical but pithy guide for women finding themselves in need of a respectable-but-profitable gig is now considered a landmark in women’s literature. Its combination of factual detail and a sort of “tough love,” softened by that graceful, dignified upbringing referenced earlier, makes it quite readable even today.

Between 1896 and 1901, Candee wrote six pieces for five different periodicals about Oklahoma Territory and life therein. They’re strong enough to consider individually, but what they demonstrate consistently is her knack for capturing things like crop production reports and detached observations on cultural evolution while always circling back to the human experience that makes all the rest of it matter.

Candee also published her only novel, An Oklahoma Romance, during her time in Guthrie. It’s surprisingly readable over a century later – the first novel set in Oklahoma and a grand bit of historical fiction at that. Those in the know suspected many of the characters and events were based on the very real people around Helen in her Oklahoma years, making it even more intriguing for contemporaries.

Candee would eventually move to Washington, D.C., and her writing would go very different directions. She published six more books, all non-fiction, on topics like historical tapestries or the ancient wonders of Cambodia. Digging through her biography becomes almost surreal as one discovers her helping to remodel the White House, riding a white horse at the head of a women’s rights march in D.C., nursing Ernest Hemingway back to health as part of the Italian Red Cross, and – most famously – surviving the sinking of the Titanic.

Give them a pen and a paycheck, and they think they’re real people, boys. They get themselves going and before you know it, you’ve lost all control.

Helen Churchill Candee passed just short of her 91st birthday in 1949. She’d begun an autobiography which was never finished and never published, but which efforts are currently being made to resurrect. In her time on earth she periodically broke the surface of historical waters in ways both glorious and sublime, while never actually doing anything a reasonably educated and focused person shouldn’t have been able to do. While I missed her by a generation, I am in some ways in love with the idea of her, and I’m OK with that.

Books by HCC:

How Women My Earn A Living (1900)

An Oklahoma Romance (1901)

Decorative Styles and Periods In The Home (1906)

The Tapestry Book (1912)

Jacobean Furniture (1916)

Angkor the Magnificent (1924) – Note: The 2008 republication of this contains the most complete and engaging biography of HCC available to date, written by Randy Bryan Bigham.

New Journeys In Old Asia (1927)

Weaves and Draperies: Classic and Modern (1930)

HCC Articles About Oklahoma:

“In Oklahoma” (The Illustrated American, April 4, 1896)

“Divorcons” (The Illustrated American, April 11, 1896)

“Social Conditions In Our Newest Territory” (The Forum, June 1898)

“Oklahoma Claims” (Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, October 1898)

“Oklahoma” (The Atlantic Monthly, September 1900)

“A Chance In Oklahoma” (Harper’s Weekly, February 23, 1901)

While her other publications are too numerous to list here, it would be remiss not to mention what may have been her most widely-read and oft-remembered piece, written shortly after she survived the sinking of the Titanic:

“Sealed Orders” (Collier’s Weekly, May 4, 1912)

Rabbit Trails: Criminal Intimacy & Pernicious Polygamy

May 28, 2017June 23, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

I’ve been trying to follow up on a previous post about the “divorce industry” in Oklahoma Territory (1889 – 1907), but I keep getting sidetracked by odd search results and unexpectedly engaging-but-off-topic tangents. I’m finally admitting that my ADHD (Abstemiously Distracted History Dysfunction) has won, and figure I might as well share some of the results.

KANSAS CITY, Mo., Oct. 24.—Last June Judge Field, of the circuit court, granted a divorce to Ira Welch from his wife Ida on the ground of infidelity. Mrs. Welch had not received notice of the suit and the only evidence introduced was the affidavits of Welch and others. Mrs. Welch now brings suit to have the divorce set aside on the ground that she did not receive notice and that publication was not properly made.

OK, so first off – Ira and Ida Welch? How adorable is that!

It sounds like a fairly typical midwestern divorce case so far. It’s not clear how Mr. Welch ended up in Kansas City, but clearly Mrs. Welch hadn’t come with him. While the Midwest was known for its generally lax divorce laws during this period, I’m not aware of Kansas City being particularly notorious in that regard. Whatever the reason, after legal requirements had been met – probably the posting of newspaper notices giving Mrs. Welch a window of time in which to show up and make her case – the court had granted Mr. Welch a divorce.

Now the ex has found out and shown up. She’s in “not so fast, buster” mode – understandable, if inconvenient for Mr. Welch. But this one’s about to get weird, even for a contested midwestern divorce.

She admits criminal intimacy with T.R. Burch, general western manager of the Phoenix insurance company with whom she lived for two years at the Palmer house in Chicago.

“Criminal intimacy” presumably refers to adultery, although it’s certainly a far more colorful term. And it’s not like they just got drunk at an office party and had a moment of passion on the couch – she lived with him for two years! That certainly suggests things with Mr. Welch weren’t going well. What to do, what to do?

She admits also that she purchased a foundling after the Eva Hamilton method and attempted to palm it off on Burch as their child for the purpose of black mail and the attempt failed.

A “foundling” was an unattached child – an orphan, or possibly a kidnapped baby or a child sold off for whatever reason. Apparently you could pick up a kid or three for next-to-nothing in those years. As to the “Eva Hamilton” reference, Hamilton was part of a wild, dysfunctional tale of sex, lies, and stabbing the nanny which unfolded in the press only months before. She, too, had tried the “but I gave birth to your child!” angle using faux offspring she’d only recently purchased, and was at the time of this report sitting in prison ostensibly for murder, but more honestly for being a bit of a ho.

Back to the tawdry Mrs. Welch:

She also admits criminal intimacy with Isaac Warrell, a capitalist of Chicago and several other prominent Chicago men.

Well sure – why not at that point?

So how, exactly, did she explain her opposition to this divorce?

She alleges, however, that her husband had full knowledge of her intimacy with all these men and that her immoralities were practiced with his consent, he receiving the greater part of the money that she extorted from her gentlemen acquaintances.
The case goes to trial tomorrow.
“Another Eva Hamilton” (Oklahoma City Daily Times, October 25, 1889)

Oh, well then – if her husband knew and approved, that’s a great reason to stay together.

Mr. Welch was granted his divorce.

As I returned to searching for “divorce mill” anecdotes, this story popped up:

TOLAGA, Oklahoma, Sept. 22.—Yellow Bonnet, a Cheyenne Indian, has applied for a blanket divorce from his four wives. It is the first time that an Indian has applied for a divorce in Oklahoma. Yellow Bonnett recently embraced the Christian religion, but his wives refused to become Christians.
The New York Times (September 23, 1895)

My first inclination was to question the term “blanket” divorce, given the slang and mindset towards Amerindians at the time. Pretty sure I was reading too much into the term, however.

Still, I couldn’t help but follow up. Apparently his wives had reached some sort of agreement amongst themselves that he had to divorce all or none of them. The fear was that if he divorced them individually, he’d get down to one last wife and decide to keep her, thus leaving the others cut off.

So they locked arms and insisted on all or nothing. Good for them.

And… “Yellow Bonnet”? Really?

Next result…

OKLAHOMA DIVORCE TANGLE
Mrs. Harris Sues Mason After He Is Reconciled with His Wife.
GUTHRIE, Oklahoma, Dec. 3.—A very sensational case closed in the Probate Court at Newkirk to-day. Some time ago George M. Mason, a jeweler well known in several Colorado cities, came ot Oklahoma City from Denver to try to get a divorce.

Ah, that’s more like it. This is Oklahoma’s “Divorce Industry” in action!

Soon after his arrival he began to lavish attention on Mrs. Anna Harris, a dashing widow, boarding house keeper. Recently Mrs. Mason arrived from Colorado, effected a reconciliation, and the couple prepared to start for the Centennial State.

See, Colorado joined the Union in 1876, the nation’s centennial. What made this timing particularly interesting was—

Actually, never mind. BECAUSE I’M FOCUSED NOW.

The widow first attempted suicide.

Whoah, there – suicide? Not to downplay her suffering, but that’s the go-to response when your man-toy reconciles with his old lady? I mean, yell, sure. Curse, throw stuff at him – but suicide?

The doctors pumped out her stomach, and she had Mason arrested for stealing $150. She claimed to have left it with him for safe keeping.

Did he have the audacity to even come and step to her and ask to hold some money from her until he got his check next week?

That trifling, good-for-nothing type of brother. Silly widow – why didn’t she find another?

The evidence developed that she had received the money from a well-known merchant, and had given it to Mason with the understanding that in return he was to pay attention to her alone. The Judge discharged the prisoner, declaring there had been no theft, simply a breach of contract.

That’s hilarious. By which I mean sad. If we use sad to mean seriously messed up.

Here’s a tip for all you young ladies (or middle-aged widows) out there – if you have to pay him not to run around on you, the relationship is not going well.

One last try. Surely I’m due for something useful and on-topic…

Citrus J. O’Donnell… comes into the court to ask for some sort of relief. Citrus himself seems to have rather hazy notions of the sort of relief he wants, but he thinks he is entitled to something of the sort. He says he does not want a divorce, but he thinks the court ought to look after his wife a little.

OK, I have to admit this caught my attention.

And… “Citrus”? My apologies to “Yellow Bonnet.”

He explains that he married Mrs. O’Donnell three years ago and that since then she from time to time has married other men, five in all. Citrus asserts that he has labored with his polygamous spouse and has earnestly sought to wean her from her pernicious theories of wholesale partnership, but all in vain.
After several months of marital tranquility and happiness with Citrus, Mrs. O’Donnell has been accustomed to steal away quietly, swoop down on some neighboring city and gobble up another husband. A few months later she returns, dangling another scalp from her belt and with another marriage certificate added to her souvenier collection.

We’re, um… we’re going to assume those “scalps” are metaphorical. Otherwise we have a very different legal situation here.

Citrus… doesn’t want a divorce; he wants his wife. And he comes into court to ask the law to do something for him. It strikes us that in equity Citrus is entitled to some sort of relief. If he cannot do better perhaps he might find relief in praying earnestly for brains.
The Guthrie Leader (February 26, 1895)

*pause*

That does it. I’m going to need to try some better search terms.

Rabbit Trails: Mary Sallade & The One-Eyed Pickpocket

May 27, 2017June 23, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 2 Comments

I’ve been looking into the “divorce industry” in Oklahoma Territory (1889 – 1907). I’ve posted once on the topic, and I’m a bit overdue in following up. This particular line of inquiry evolved from my interest in author and Renaissance Woman Helen Churchill Candee, who came to Guthrie to sever her own marital bonds in 1896, and who stayed long enough to write about life there – multiple times and quite effectively.

So I spend more time than seems reasonable searching online newspaper archives for terms like “divorce” or “Oklahoma.” I’m not sure this makes me a crack researcher, but it has certainly led me down some weird paths. Not every result fits what I’m after – they’re just keyword searches, after all – but history is a twisted, taunting little minx. Pick any topic – ANY topic – and start scratching at it. Something fascinating will almost always unfold… and yet leave you with a congress of unknowns, smirking and smug like Alice’s cat.

MRS. MARY F. SALLADE IS MARRIED
Her Third Husband Harrison E. Havens of Enid, Oklahoma.
Mrs. Mary F. Sallade, who figured in court several times as the accuser of the proprietors of resorts in West Twenty-fourth Street, between Broadway and Sixth Avenue, has been married for the third time.

OK – so third time, huh? Surely that was a bit unusual for that era. And… “accuser of the proprietors of resorts…”? There’s got to be a story there, one with which the Times assumed readers were already familiar.

She is now Mrs. Harrison Eugene Havens, having been married April 3 by the Rev. Dr. Parkhurst. Enid, Oklahoma, will soon be her home. Mr. Havens, who is a lawyer, procured for her a divorce from her second husband, whose name was Sharpe.

Ah, the plot thickens! Divorce Husband No. 2 while hooking up with your lawyer. Sly little thing, wasn’t she?

Mrs. Sallade gave $500 security for the appearance in court of George Appo, to answer the charge of having stabbed policeman M.F. Rein. Appo is missing and Mrs. Sallade may lose her money.
The New York Times (April 18, 1895)

Um… what? Who is – and he stabbed – and… WTF?!

George Appo, it turns out, was a notorious pickpocket and con man, easily recognized as the half-Irish, half-Chinese guy with one eye non-surgically removed. Several months after this piece was published he was sentenced to six months in a New York penitentiary for assaulting Officer Rein.

None of which explains how or why Mary Sallade was involved. But no matter – I should get back to that Oklahoma divorce stuff. I so rarely have the time to properly—

*sigh*

OK. One quick Google search. That’s all. Then back to my original quest.

Police officer Michael Rein charged Appo with stabbing him while placing him under arrest for creating a disturbance. Under cross-examination, however, Appo’s counsel, Frank Moss, challenged the veracity of Rein’s story and the media coverage of the event.

Sensationalized media coverage distorting the facts in 1895? The more things change…

The officer testified that after the confrontation with Appo, he returned to the precinct house, undressed, and slept in the station that evening. Only the next day, he admitted, did he bother to notice the stab wound…

So it really wasn’t even a proper stabbing? That would explain the relatively short sentence.

Appo was… represented by Frank Moss, but his five-hundred dollar bond was furnished by Mary F. Sallade, a prominent figure in moral reform circles in New York and sometimes called “the female Parkhurst”… Such encouragement bolstered Appo. He insisted that “no matter what the police tried they could not again drive him into the ranks of crooks”…

Sallade was “a prominent figure in moral reform circles”? The Sallade now on Husband No. 3, who helped her dump Husband No. 2, and seems to have brought her all the way to Enid, OK?

There’s another reference which presumably meant something to contemporaneous readers – “the female Parkhurst.” From context, we can reasonably infer he must have been some sort of reformer, perhaps a—

Wait, “Parkhurst”? Parkhurst. Where have we heard—

The guy who married Mary to her third husband, who helped her divorce her second husband, while she was putting up bail for the ne’er-do-well who’d supposedly stabbed a cop but now it seems like maybe he really didn’t? THAT Parkhurst? He was a household name of some sort?

But I’m not Googling him. I’m just not. Too much to do! Be strong.

Dammit.

On Valentine’s Day in 1892 an obscure minister delivered a sermon that changed the fate of New York City. The jeremiad by the Rev. Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst inspired a campaign that unmasked New York’s first major police scandal, that contributed to the creation of a five-borough city and that placed Theodore Roosevelt on the road to the Presidency…
“Parkhurst proved that one just man could singlehandedly defeat a powerful and evil machine like Tammany Hall and reform an entire police department”…
“Taking on Tammany, 100 Years Ago” (Selwyn Raab – The New York Times, February 14, 1992)

*sigh*

He has his own Wikipedia entry. The Rev. Parkhurst mentioned in such casual passing as having hitched Mary Sallade to Husband No. 3 helped take down Tammany Hall, a task normally more closely associated with political cartoonist Thomas Nast, who popularized our current image of Santa Claus. I have no doubt they both connect directly to Kevin Bacon from here.

Rev. Dr. Charles Parkhurst is not to be confused, of course, with Charley Parkhurst, the cross-dressing (possibly transgendered) stagecoach driver and cowboy from a few short decades before. Born biologically female, and orphaned, she lived most of her life as a male and was best-known by the nickname “One-Eyed Charley.” Wanna guess why?

None of which helps Mary, who lost her bail money:

A week later Appo failed to appear for his trial, thus forfeiting Sallade’s bond. Appo later defended his flight as self-defense.
A Pickpocket’s Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth-Century New York, by Timothy J. Gilfoyle (2007)

Sallade comes up a half-dozen times more in Gilfoyle’s book. She gave Appo honest employment at “the Sallade Dress Factory” and is listed as one of the few “evangelically motivated reformers” who reached out to men like Appo offering pathways to redemption, no matter how many times they fell back into a life of crime. Appo mentioned her specifically near the end of his life, giving thanks to those who’d cared.

Fascinating. And I want so badly to make some sort of “Sallade” and “Dresses/Dressing” remark, but…

I’ve got a semi-legit post to compose. Surely the next result will be more useful.

BROOKLYN DIVORCE CASE: Aged Mr. and Mrs. Meinekhein in an Oklahoma Court.
PERRY, Oklahoma, Dec. 23.—Although seventy years old, with hair (when not dyed) as white as cotton, so her husband says, Mrs. Lucinda C. Meinekhein, school-teacher, of Brooklyn, N.Y., has come to Oklahoma to fight her husband, B.G. Meinekhein, in his divorce suit, which began to-day.

Ah, here we go. He came here to get an easy divorce, and she showed up to contest it!

Wait – did that say she was SEVENTY YEARS OLD?

Menekhein was married to Lucinda in 1868, and he says she treated him very cruelly. One charge is that she doused him with cold water several times while he was in bed. Mrs. Meinekhein introduced many love letters, purporting to have been written by Meinekhein to New York City Women.
The New York Times (December 24th, 1896)

She was a teacher? What color did she dye her hair normally? And these letters… how long ago had they been—

Nope.

But “Lucinda”? And what prompted the cold water? Was it just “you’re an a-hole!” cold water or was it “take a cold shower, you lecherous old goat!” cold water? If I research such an unusual name, surely–

Nope.

No more distractions. I have a post on the divorce industry in Oklahoma Territory to get compose. We’ll try again next time.

Nuptial Benedictions (The Divorce Industry in Oklahoma Territory)

March 9, 2017June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Between the first “land run” opening up the “Unassigned Lands” of Indian Territory in 1889 and statehood in 1907, Oklahoma filled up rapidly.

There were a variety of reasons, of course. The “frontier” was rapidly closing and Oklahoma Territory was the last hope of true homesteading on the continent. Early reports suggested fertile soil and cooperative climate – descriptions which would later be recalled in wry reflection by those who’d embraced them. Then there was the sheer newness and unpredictability of it all – in a nation built on restlessness and possibilities, that alone was sometimes enough.

Oh – and of course, it was a great place to get a divorce.

Oklahoma is trying hard to outbid all of its neighbors in the matter of granting easy and quick divorce. An attorney at Kingfisher, in that Territory, has issued a circular which points out that the statutes of Oklahoma specify no fewer than “ten separate and distinct causes, for any one or more of which a divorce may be obtained,” including that all-embracing term, “gross neglect of duty”…
{T}he statute required only three months’ residence in the Territory; and finally, that “persons coming to Oklahoma will find the city of Kingfisher, with its 4,000 inhabitants and all modern improvements, a very pleasant place to live in.” Apparently Indiana, Chicago, and South Dakota are all to be outdone in the divorce line by Oklahoma.
–The Nation, July 13, 1893

Divorces weren’t easy to come by in much of the country – especially older states like New York, which were so conservative and obsessed with family values compared to renegades like Oklahoma. In some cases it literally took an act of the state congress; in most it required proving blatant infidelity or substantial abuse. You could move to a state with less-restrictive divorce laws, but establishing residency in the eyes of the law often took a year or more, and the variety of local obstacles could prove dizzying.

Even then, the spouse from whom one sought separation was often required to be physically present in order to secure legal disentanglement – something they might not be willing to do if they were for some reason unhappy with you… say, for instance, if you were in the middle of a divorce.

But not in Oklahoma Territory. They wanted fresh blood and they weren’t overly particular how they secured it. Besides, Oklahoma was all about new beginnings during this period – fresh starts, and unlimited optimism. Ironic, right?

We weren’t alone in promoting the divorce business. South Dakota for a time set the standard for shameless pandering to the corrupted and unfaithful. We taught them a thing or two, however about breaking up not being at all hard to do.

{O}ur divorce laws are both lax and conflicting. A man may be divorced in one State, yet still be married in another; hence in one State he may marry again, while in another he becomes a bigamist if he does. The unsavory reputation which South Dakota has lately enjoyed is but another reminder of the necessity for uniform divorce legislation throughout the country.
In the inducements, however, by which it seeks to obtain its share of this infamous divorce trade the Territory of Oklahoma goes beyond South Dakota…

Our priorities have changed, but our compulsive, legislative need to be the worst in every preventable category has remained remarkably consistent over a century later.

The statutes of Oklahoma Territory require ninety days’ previous residence before commencement of action, as in South Dakota before the change of law.

OK, we didn’t so much beat them on the residency thing so much as they retreated slightly. Wimps.

But we completely tromped the Dakotas when it came to notifying your soon-to-be-ex of your intended proceedings:

Service upon a non-resident defendant may be made personally or by publication. There is no statute requiring corroborative proof as in South Dakota.
—The Outlook, February 17, 1894

In other words, for an Oklahoma divorce you didn’t have to prove you’d informed your partner of your efforts to quit them, or go far in giving them a chance to respond or to appear. All you had to do was place notice in a paper they might theoretically read. If they don’t respond, the courts would assume they were fine with it.

Periodicals of the 1880s and 1890s are full of editorials and investigations into the increasing popularity of divorce across the country. The North American Review, one of the longest-running and most literary periodicals in all of American publishing, asked five well-respected authors – all of them female – the rather loaded question, “Is the woman more to blame for unhappiness in marriage?”

Spoiler Alert: Yeah, pretty much.

The most progressive of the bunch, author and journalist Rebecca Harding Davis, was the least comfortable pinning every sin of Adam on Eve. She was also not convinced the root problem was a new one:

I am not at all sure, either, that there are more unhappy marriages than there were fifty years ago. There are more divorces, and divorce-bills drag the secret unhappiness to light. I remember, in the Virginia town in which I passed my childhood, there was one divorcée, and so rare was the legal severance of marriage in those days, and so abhorrent to public feeling, that the poor young woman was regarded with horror as though she had been a leper.
But were there no wretched marriages among the good people who held her at arm’s length? no drunken, brutal husbands? no selfish, nagging wives? Nowadays the lax divorce laws bring out all these secret skeletons to dance in the streets.

But as to the lax divorce laws of some of the newer states (and territories)?

In our Western States, the consciousness that divorce is easily possible, no doubt, often makes wives restless and insurgent under petty annoyances. When that is the case, it is certainly the woman who is in fault.

“Restless and insurgent” actually rather nicely describes some of the most interesting and capable women in my world. “She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”

Booyah, baby.

In the South, where divorce is still looked upon as a disgrace, and where religious feeling is more stringent than in any other part of the country, the old-fashioned Domestic woman is still to be found. She is gentle; she has infinite tact; she hates a fuss; she knows the art of managing men. I think that she is not often to blame if her home is unhappy.
In some of the New-England States, where the women outnumber the men six to one, it is the hard, lean-natured man who has the game in his own hands…
—“Are Women To Blame?”, North American Literary Review, May 1889.

You get the idea.

Disputes over marital termination, not surprisingly, often ended up in court. One case, involving Mr. & Mrs. Frank Magowan (spelled ‘MacGowan’ below) became rather well-known to those looking to the judicial branch for moral rebalancing:

We hope that the Supreme Court of the United States, when the question comes before it for decision, may hold that divorces obtained in ‘foreign’ States are not valid. The matter grows out of the New York decision that is known as the MacGowan case. In that case it was held that neither the wife nor the husband can acquire residence in another State for the purpose of obtaining a divorce. If that decision is sustained it will mean quite a revolution in divorce methods. We hope it is good law, for it is certainly good morals…

It’s nice to know that not so very long ago, at least some states valued the sacredness of holding captive someone you used to love but who now despises you. On such foundations are strong societies built.

During the past few years the pilgrimages of those seeking divorces to the Dakotas, to Oklahoma, and other sparsely settled States and Territories where laws are lax and inducements are actually held out to those desiring legal separation, have amounted to a public scandal which has spread even beyond this country.
It has seemed hopeless to appeal to the pride of people like those in Oklahoma. We hope that an appeal to the Supreme Court will end the matter…

“It has seemed hopeless to appeal to the pride of people like those in Oklahoma”? That’s rather insulting, don’t you think? Rude, even. Makes me wish I were married to the author just so I could move here and divorce their ugly behind.

The husbands who have raised a fund to prosecute this matter may simply be acting from motives of revenge, but their contributions may result in great public good as well as in the discomfiture of wives who have journeyed to Dakota in order to contract another marriage…
—“Employment of Women,” The Literary Digest, February 27, 1897

Wow.

Imagine a time and place in which men – purely out of hostility towards women they believe have overstepped their bounds, or forgotten their station – promote legislation cynically crafted to teach those wenches a lesson and keep them in their place. Now imagine that such legislation succeeds because even those without such blatantly ugly motives believe a little heel-to-neck is probably good for the unclean – that it keeps them in line.

Oklahoma was for a brief, shining moment on the OTHER side of that dynamic. It was on the “everyone deserves an opportunity to rise above their past” side of things.

I know, right?! History is crazy.

Even the French were appalled – and you know how hard it is to offend the French.

“This facility of varying the colors of the conjugal knots singularly increases the vogue of a holy state that may be embraced, quitted, and resumed so easily at the hands of the pastor; so it is not the coming nuptial benediction that disturbs those spouses that are desirous of separating; it is—will it be believed?—the rigor of the laws of some States.

There’s such a fine line between colorful rhetoric and just being obnoxious about it. (And yes, I see the irony.)

There are States, like New York, where divorce is very hard to obtain, and whose residents are forced to resort to the judges of other States, where marriage is a plaything that is broken with more or less ease.
The inhabitants of New York have only to cross the Hudson. The State of New Jersey, which borders the other side of the river, is empowered to untie knots, but only in certain cases; there are scruples; serious grounds are necessary.

Yeah, New Jersey and their stern scruples. Some things never change.

People who can not produce these must take the trouble to go a great deal farther, to North or South Dakota, or to the Territory of Oklahoma, where chains are broken as by enchantment!

That should go on our license plates: “Oklahoma – Where Chains Are Broken As By Enchantment!”

If they ask your reasons, they never commit the indiscretion of finding them insufficient. One sole condition is required—residence for six months in the two first-named States, and for three months in Oklahoma, but—you are not obliged to really live there.

What? Another wrinkle!

Most honorable witnesses gain a livelihood in no other way than by affirming on oath that you have resided there from the day of the introduction of your application up to the day when you appear before the judge. There are even ways of avoiding this latter formality.”
—“A French View of Marriage And Divorce In The United States,” The Literary Digest, August 7, 1897

We should never have bailed them out of every war for the entire 20th century.

My absolute favorite commentary on Oklahoma as divorce factory comes in the form of a play. “While You Wait,” by Charles Newton Hood, was published in June of 1900 in a magazine called The Smart Set. The play, which is fairly brief and absolutely worth reading in full, consists entirely of dialogue between Mr. and Mrs. Van Cleef – a well-to-do couple who’ve managed to live together quite civilly for several years despite realizing very shortly into their marriage that there’s no actual love between them.

Mrs. Van Cleef, however, has a solution…

Mrs. Van Cleef—Well, I have been looking into the matter a little and I think that it could all be arranged very nicely and easily, and everything would be lovely. The circular says—
Mr. Van Cleef—The circular?
Mrs. Van Cleef—Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you. I wrote to some lawyers in Dakota and Oklahoma, who call themselves “Divorce Specialists,” and advertise “Divorces While You Wait;” and really, the way they put it, all you have to do to get a divorce is just to go out there and spend a few months enjoying the lovely climate and all that, and come back divorced…

Mr. Van Cleef interrupts to make sure she’s been discreet with these inquiries, then she continues:

Mrs. Van Cleef—Now, in this divorce business, there seems to be a great rivalry between South Dakota and Oklahoma, but the Oklahoma firm’s circular is a great deal the more enticing. Listen. It says (she reads from a circular which she takes from her pocket): “Our newer States, in compiling their laws, have seen fit to show more liberality in the matter of obtaining divorces than may be found among the older States, whose laws on this subject were enacted at a time when ideas were less in accord with the advanced liberal thought of the present.
”As the Mohammedan devotee confidingly turns his eyes toward the tomb of his beloved leader, so has Dakota been regarded as the Mecca of hope to weary companions in matrimony.”
Isn’t that nice? We’ll be the weary companions…

This amuses me on so many levels.

Mrs. Van Cleef goes on to explain that Oklahoma has clearly been giving Dakota a run for its divorce earnings.

It says we have to live there only ninety days before we can get a divorce and be as free as the glorious air of Oklahoma. All we have to swear to is that we are uncongenial and incompatible, and you swear that you are a poor, neglected husband, and I’ll swear that I am a poor, neglected wife, and we’ll go out there for a little vacation, and you can hunt and explore and neglect me and be uncongenial and incompatible, and I’ll climb mountains and fish and be incompatible and uncongenial and neglect you, and we’ll have just a lovely time, and there won’t be any scandal, and when we come back we’ll just be good friends…

They go on to ponder what a coup the railroads might manage if they were to arrange package deals for husbands and wives traveling together to Oklahoma, then returning separately—or with different companions.

Maybe it’s my love of dark humor, but I find the entire thing hilarious over a century later, despite the happy ending.

As Oklahoma continues to seek new ways to make divorce more expensive, more embarrassing, or simply more difficult, it’s a shame we can’t look to our past – our roots – and remain a bit more faithful to the policies which got us where we are today. To dance with the one what brung us, as it were.

Instead, we’re faithlessly abandoning them for new priorities, and ideologies. We’re cutting loose our old, somewhat embarrassing ways for a hotter, younger legislative philosophy. It’s like we’d rather not even talk about our collective past at all, if we can avoid it.

Shame, shame, shame. Where’s the loyalty?

RELATED POST: Boomers & Sooners, Part One

RELATED POST: A Chance In Oklahoma (w/ Commentary)