The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-04-20
EVERYBODY WORKS
But Father. He Sits Around
All Day, Says Mrs. Travis.
In Her Petition for Divorce
From Her Husband.
WEARS OUT HIS UNDERSHIRT
Lying in Bed While She Washes
and Scrubs.
Gave Her but SIS in Ten
Months, She Says.
WEARS OUT HIS UNDERSHIR7

When father sits around all day
while mother does the washing and
all the other work incident to the
operation of a seventeen room hotel;
when father-an able bodied man
spends SO much time in bed that he
wears the sleeves and shoulders out
of his undershirt, the court holds it is
time for mother to ditch father.
And following out that line of rea
sonIng, Judge A. w. Dana today
granted divorce to Mrs Ella 3.
Travis who brought suit months ago
against Lawrence Travis.
While Mrs. Travis mentioned Incl
dentally that she took all the care of
the big rooming house at 332 Kansas
avenue, doing the washing, the iron
work of a chambermaid and porter
and that she paid all the bills, that
was not her chief complaint. The
thing that ranked within Mrs. Traviss
mind was the fact, she stated, that
Travis wouldn't work.
She charged that while she was do
ing all the work Travis would sit in a
chair beside the stove most of the day;
that when he stirred at all it was to
bring some undesirable characters into
the rooming house to loaf with him
and that when he was neither sitting
in the chair nor bringing in undesir-
able characters he was in bed. She
declared he spent so much time in
shoulders all out of his undershirt, in
which, it appears he slept.
Put on a Lordly Air.
Besides all that. Mrs. Travis said,
Travis put on a lordly air and declared
TO guests at the rooming house that he
didn't have to work; that his money
was tied up in the rooming house,
when as a matter of fact it was her
money that bought the furniture and
supplies
Mrs. Travis stated that she bought
the furniture used in the rooming
house and was paying for it by the
month with money she earned doing
drudgery'' and that she still owed $500
on it. She stated that the only money
Travis had given her in ten months
was fifteen dollars once when she was
short on her furniture payment
Travis's shortcomings did not stop
with that according to his wife. She
declared that besides doing all the
work and supporting him she was
compelled to listen while he called her
vile names and threatened her with
physical violence. She has a son by
former marriage, twenty years of
age, feeble of mind and body, and she
| declared Travis often abused him
shamefully.
Started Suit Once Before.
The Travis couple were married at
! Yates Center September 10, 1908, and
]
ings once before but dropped them,
she says. when Travis thought he was
going to lose his meal ticket and
promised to do better. But he didn't
do better. she said, and she wants a
| divorce.
She intimated that if she were going
to do all the work. pay all the bills and
support herself and son it would be a
I better arrangement all around If she
were not required to support Travis
and take his alleged abuse.
The divorce was not contested, al
though Travis entered a general de-
NAL to everything except the fact that
he was a resident of Shawnee county
and was married to the plaintiff.
Mrs. Travis feared that Travis
would carry out alleged threats to
keep people away from her rooming
house and break up her furniture. but
all that was taken care of in the form
of restraining orders. the violation of
which will place Travis in contempt of
] ro ~