Fort Mill times. [volume] (Fort Mill, S.C.) 1892-current, 1907-07-25
WANTS DIVORCE
So As Her Husband Can Marry
Another Woman.
And Give His Two IIegitimate
Daughters His Name and Thus
Save Them From Shame.

Daughters His Name and Thus
Save Them From Shame.
| With the formal application made
Thursday in the New York Supreme
Court for a final judgement of di-
vorce, following an interlocutory de-
cree signed by Justice Crane on April
9th last, is made public astartling
story of martial infidelity and double
| life, in which a prominent resident
jof Borough Park, Brooklyn, is the
defendant, and social scandal
which has agitated Boston at times
for several years is revived.
The man who is charged by his
wife with having led double life is
Joseph T. Cunningham, said to be
drawing salary of $4,000 as man
ager OF an electrical company with
offices at III Broadway, Manhattan.
His wife. Mrs. ISABEL S. Cunningham,
or 66 Clifton place, charges that he
has been living with one Lizzie Demp-
sey at 5S17 Fifteenth avenue. Bor-
ough Park, and by whom he has had
two children.
From the papers and the testimony
in the case which was taken before
Justice Crane on March 22d. much
of the romance of the Cunninghams
and the sorrow of the wife at her
discovery of her husbands transfer
of his affections to the Dempsey
woman is revealed. Letters of Mrs.
Cunningham also tell of her wish 20
endure self-abnegation in the nope
that, If she secured the divorce, her
husband would marry the mother of
his children
Mr.. and Mrs. Cunningham were
married at the Hotel oxford on Dec
ember IA, 1894. At that time Cum
ningham, 1t is said, had great politi-
cal aspirations in Bosom, being a
friend of former Mayor Josiah Quincy
and a close associate with other
prominent Democratic politicians of
Massachusetts. He was at one time
member of the Democratic National
committee, ii is said.
MRS. Cunningham was also of
prominent family in Boston, highly
cultured and educated. and of indie
pendent means. The marriage of the
parties was a social event. A few
years later, 1t is said, and the charge
is made in the papers in the action
brought by Mrs. Cunningham, the
husband became enamored with one
Lizzie Dempsey, daughter of a promi-
nent society man in Boston, and de-
serted his wife, after having dissipat-
ed as much of her fortune as he
could get hold upon the woman who
is mentioned as the correspondent
in the action. 1t is that Mrs. Gun
ningham, after tracking her husband
and the Dempsey woman to New
York city, about seven years ago,
In irNn thA
Grand Central station
The discovery that Cunningham
and Miss Dempsey were living to-
gether in Borough Park was made,
the plaintiff says in her testimony, in
June, 1906, and it is claimed that the
5,0OC Queen Anne cottage, 5S17
FIFTEENTH avenue, which stands in
Miss Dempsey's name was a present
to her from Cunningham. Testi-
mony was given at the trial that Miss
Dempsey is known there as Mrs.
Cunningham, and that few in the
Borough Park coterie of friends of
Cunningham knew otherwise.
Mrs. Cunningham says, in a letter,
because of the two little girls, daugh-
ters OF the Dempsey woman and Gun
ningham, she is averse to any expo
ure of the marital infelicities that
have came between herself and hus-
band. She writes:
THE little girls" she says, "are
six and four and half years, respec-
lively. Because of them | was able
to bring myself to a point where
was willing to divorce him. 1t was
through him that l lost my horses,
jewelry and other roperty-every
thing dear to me. | horsewhipped
her seven years ago when he wanted
to come back to me-"