Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1905-07-04
is NINE TIMES A BRIDE.
comeIy Kentucky Woman OF SO Years
Breaks Records-Neyer Divorced.

6TSdkS n6COfdS-Never DIVORCED.
Owingsboro, KY, July 3.-Down in
the hills Of Taylor county lives Ma
tilda Jones Ayres, known from one end
Of the state to the other as the woman
who has been married nine times and
never yet has she been separated from
a husband by the divorce route. She
has just been married for the ninth
time and is believed to hold the worlds
record for muchm arried women. She
is now only thirty-three years old and
almost as pretty as she was when. at
the age of sixteen years, she eloped
from little country schoolhouse with
Morgan Ellet, handsome young
mountaineer.
Eight graves, all headed by grave
stones exactly alike, mark the resting
places of the eight husbands who have
tasted the joys of being loved by this
pretty mountain girl. The gravestones
all have cut out in them, Beloved hus-
band of Matilda Jane -- Till we
the others is that the name of the
space.
First a Bride When is.
She has certainly had her share OF
romances. When only sixteen years Of
age fate decreed that she should love
a young mountaineer named Morgan
Ellet. One night she and Ellet eloped
on horseback to Campbellsville, ten
miles away, and were married. Her
father, who had opposed the match.
followed them on horseback and met
tempted to shoot his newly-made son.
Il, low h,1t the ri,.l1 81 ~
front of her lord and master and de-
fled her father to shoot. He did not.
Eleven months after that eventful
night Morgan Ellet went hunting. He
climbed fence, his gun slipped the
hammer struck rail and Matilda Jane
was widow For ten months after
she, had started her private cemetery
Matilda Jane remained true to her first
love, but at last there came a-wooing
Stephen Boards, wealthy sldnfiint,
who held a mortgage on the humble
home of Mrs. Ellet. Instead Of fore
closing the mortgages he held he laid
siege to the heart Of the pretty widow,
and they were married One day
Boards rode away to foreclose mort
gage on somebody's property and that
night as he returned home he was shot
from ambush and killed. He left a
large estate and Matte E1let Boards
was wealthy, as mountain riches go.
For several months she waited in the
big house Boards has built for her,
and then there came down from the
hills young Ewdard Wicton, moon
sinner Matilda Jane would listen to
no other suitor but married the hand.
some young moonshiner and went with
him to the mountains, where he and
several sisters operated moonshine
still. One day a posse of "revenuers,"
as the mountaineers call them, raided
the Wicton cabin. Edward was away
from home but his sisters attacked
the officers and were fighting them
when Edward appeared. He stood be.
| hind tree and killed two officers and
wounded one or two others, until they
returned his fire, and then the young
Mrs. Wicton went back to her home
once more a widow.
| She was then 10 years old. Two
years she remained single, but at last
she hardened to loves song when 1t
was warbled by Andrew Lowman, a
sweetheart of her girlhood days. Two
years they were happy together and
Andy was gathered to his fathers In
the little cemetery another grave was
made, and another gravestone added.
Wed to Late Husbands Brother.
| Nat Lowman, a brother Of Andy, was
so kind to the young widow in her
hour of trouble that nothing was more
natural than that they should wed.
Four years they lived together. One
day, Nat took his ak to the mountains
to chop wood. At midnight he had not
returned and Matilda Jane went to
search for him. When she found
huge tree lately cut down she looked
under it, and there lay her husband,
crushed to death and horribly mutt
lated. the tree having fallen on him.
For several hours the brave mountain
girl tugged and cut at the limbs that
encircled the dead body, and at last
as daylight was coming she dragged
the body out And then she dragged
it two miles to their home and tainted
at the side of the crib of her small
baby.
\ While Tho ayaraoo man tenn hoh