Case ID: ohio-ch_1/html/0455-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Court.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

L. H. FRARELL v. SARAH FRARELL.
    Divorce — wilful absence after plaintiff has gone off*.
    Where a man leaves his wife with a scanty supply, and goes off for months to labor on the canal, and when he returns, finds that his wife has gone to her friends, with the little furniture she had, that is not sufficient to decree a divorce, on account of her wilful absence, without proof that he went for her, desired her return, or informed her he had returned.
    Divorce, cause wilful absence. It appeared in evidence, that these parties were married in 1829. In May, 1830, the petitioner took a job on the canal, at a distance from hi S' home, and went to perform the work, leaving his wife behind in a cabin, with a scanty .supply of provision. Soon after he left, she took her little furniture and went to her mother’s, where she staid a' short time, and then went to her brother’s, where she still resides. On the plaintiff’s return, not finding his wife or property, he got out a search warrant to seek it. He hired a horse, and left for a short time, and said he went for his wife to return, but there was no proof that he ever did go for her, or of there being any cause for their separation, though she was once heard to say, aftér their separation, that she could never live with him again.
   By the Court.

There is no proof of the wilfulness of the defendant’s absence. In the absence, of the husband, the wife, alone, with little or no provision, has gone to her friends, and continues there. There is no proof he ever went for her, or that she is in a condition to return, or that he has made provision, or even that she knows he has returned. Bill dismissed.