Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1906-02-06
Former Iowan Mixed Up in a
Sensational Divorce Case
Among the Mormons
BECAME CONVERT IN IOWA
Wife Claims She Refused to Consent
to Husbands Marriage to Other
Wives and He Began System of Per-
secution = Other News Of tho
State.
pecial to Times-Republican.

SDec1aI 10 llfneS-heDuDllCdn.
Jefferson, Feb. 6.-Greene county
people remember w. H. Erdman, who
of this county with his family. At
that time it appears he fell in with
some Mormons and was attracted by
the possibilities of their doctrine. He
has been, apparently. very successful
in a financial way since he left Greene
county, but his domestic troubles have
possess more than one wife. story
in the Denver Post recently tells of
Erdman's divorce suit and some of
the troubles which precipitated it, The
Post says:
The doctrines of the Mormon church
and methods of the Latter Day Saints
promise to become involved in the
divorce scandal which w. n. Erdman
precipitated when he filed suit for
legal separation in the county court
last week
Erdman is connected with the p. H.
Hessler & Hall Wholesale Grocery
Company, and has a sugar refinery of
his own, besides controlling the hotel,
restaurant and bakery sugar trade in
Denver.
Mrs. Erdman, who is still living in
the home at South Twelfth street,
says: MIR. Erdman and I were
married two years ago in Golden. He
had been married twice before. Both
wives died. He had three children.
girl. who died two years ago, and two
| boys, Clifford, aged Is. and Willie,
| who is 49,
We were happy until last winter,
when we attended a dance at Mrs.
Hoffman's hall, where five Mormon
elders talked to all the women and
tried to persuade them into marrying
into the church.
From that time my husband was
insane over their doctrines. He said
to me: I can get along all right with
four or five wives and love them just
as much as you can love four or five
children at the same time
"That was the beginning of the end.
He went to Utah last September.
When he came back he was deter
mined to enter the church. He read
their books all the time. They were
too filthy for a decent man to read.
"a Mormon elder named Abraham
F. Accord. of Provo. Utah, wrote a
| terrible letter to me-"
Mrs Ereman says: my husband
compelled me to attend the Mormon
mission house at South Water and
Sixth streets with him. Often there
were thirty poor women there whose
husbands made them come They all
loathed the terrible doctrines which
profaned their sacred womanhood.
Il refused to submit to being one
of Erdmans wives and he said he
would leave me and go to Utah. Mr..
Erdman began to mistreat and beat
me.
ut is untrue that 1 ever struck him.
The report that he is a little light,
man and that I am six feet tall and
weigh 200 pounds and was able to
swing him against stone wall and
beat out his brains is untrue. He is
posing.
"My husband is far from being
small He is five feet ten inches in his
stocking feet and weighs 230 pounds.
He is brute. I loved him too much.
He used to brag that he could win
any woman, married or single, in this
town, and he thinks he is so hand
some that no woman can Withstand his
charms.
when 1 was sick he called me a
Thing and yelled, 'Blankety blank
you, if you were man ] would wipe
up the floor with you am going to
be Mormon and when one wife gets
sick will have five more to love-
81 ann heartbroken, because know
that we can never live together again.
But 1 love Willie and want to keep
him for comfort