“I am not one of your slaves!” Susan screamed.
Jonathan noticed that his son was standing in the corner of the room and
realized that he had heard the entire argument. “James, I’m going to beat the
hide off’n you if you don’t get out there and start stacking that firewood,” he
told his son.
2 “You will not touch him,” Susan declared. “I will
tell my father if you raise your hand to him!” she cried. “We are not your
property to do with as you will.”
3 At that, Jonathan threw his hands in the air in
frustration and stormed out of the house mumbling to himself. He walked out to
the barn, grabbed the bottle of whisky he had hidden there and took a swig.
4 “I cannot abide another day of living with that
bitch,” he thought to himself. Then he saddled his horse and rode off toward
town. He would never return.
5 Although there wouldn’t be any financial support or
other help from her husband over the months that followed, Susan Reynolds
enjoyed the peace and freedom that his absence afforded her and was content to
have Jonathan out of the way.
6 “He should be forced to support you and the
children,” her father told her. “I’d rather do without than have that drunkard
ordering me and the children around!” she declared.
7 “Can I do anything for you before I leave?” he
offered. “No, thank you, Daddy,” she smiled. “You and Mama have done more than
enough already.”
8 James Harney knew that his daughter was headstrong,
but he had never liked Jonathan’s drinking. “He is a bit of a tyrant when he’s
been drinking,” Mary reminded her husband. “I know, and I don’t want her to
have to live like that,” he replied. “If you’ll remember, I was against her
marrying him in the first place.” “What’s done is done,” Mary sighed.
9 James was silent for a moment, and then he said,
“Maybe not!” “What do you mean?” Mary asked. “If he is not going to provide for
her and the children, then she should divorce him,” James replied. “As things
are now, he may decide to change his mind one day and come back.”
10 “You should probably talk to her about it,” Mary
encouraged. “I think I will,” he concluded. “Better to have this thing finished
once and for all!”
11 “I wanted to talk to you about your situation,”
James began a few days later. “What situation is that, Daddy?” Susan asked as
if she didn’t know what he was talking about. “Your situation with Jonathan!”
he barked out in exasperation.
12 “In the eyes of the law, the two of you are
considered one person,” he continued. “You are currently considered a
feme-covert. In other words, everything that you have or do is in Jonathan’s
name,” he explained.
13 “And the only way to be your own person again is to
dissolve your marriage to him,” he concluded with a slow and deliberate
cadence. “I see,” she finally replied after a brief silence.
14 Susan filed for divorce at the Warren County
Courthouse in Bowling Green, Kentucky on the Friday before Christmas in 1843.
Jonathan had been gone for a little over two years by that time.
15 The following February, Atwood Hobson (a scion of
the same Hobson family who had intermarried with the McMasters family) issued a
subpoena for Jonathan to appear before Judge Graham next month to answer
Susan’s complaint against him.
16 The sheriff found him at one of the local saloons
which he had been known to frequent since he had left his wife. Jonathan was
drowning his sorrows in a bottle of whisky when the sheriff handed him the
summons, but he accepted the document without protestation or guile.
17 He appeared at the courthouse the following week.
“Your wife states that you are a worthless drunk, and that you have abandoned
her and your children and left them without support or sustenance,” the clerk
told him. “Well, I guess that’s just about right,” Jonathan replied.
18 “Are you acknowledging the truthfulness of her
complaint against you?” the man asked. “I am,” he said. The clerk’s face
wrinkled in disgust as he pushed the paper toward Jonathan for his signature.
“This is the quickest way out of this mess,” he said as he signed it.
19 A few days later his father-in-law gave his
statement in support of his daughter’s claim. The next day, the judge issued
his ruling in the case. “It is now ordered and decreed that Susan R. Reynolds
is hereby divorced from her husband Jonathan Reynolds and is restored to all
the rights and privileges of a feme sole,” he decreed.
20 Susan breathed a sigh of relief. For the first time
in her life, she felt free. It was official now. She was no longer subject to
the whim and wants of a man. She was a person in her own right and could make
her own decisions for herself and her children.
21 Now these are the generations of Jonathan Reynolds:
22 Jonathan married Susan Harney, and they had a son
named James William Reynolds.
23 James married Frances McElwain, and they had sons
William Franklin and Monty Forline Reynolds.
24 William Franklin Reynolds married Lily Barker, and they had children: Maude, James, Arthur, Elizabeth, Myrtle and Eunice.
No comments:
Post a Comment