Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current, 1919-04-20
The Late Joaquin Miller, the
Poet of the Sierras" and
Juanita's Father, in the
Odd Frontier Costume
He Liked to Wear

TuANITA MILLER. the charming
daughter of the late Joaquin Miller.
The Poet OF the Slerras," has just
been granted divorce from her trial hus-
band, John Reavis.
Mr.. Reavis is an American residing in
the Philippines He was supposed to be
the owner OF rich plantation, sundry
mines and a bungalow where his comfort
was looked after by three lSorrote ladies
whom he called ''Pickle5." Peaches" and
"Cita" During the legal proceedings some
doubt was cast. IL not upon tho riches or
mines and plantation II least upon his
generosity in scattering their proceeds.
The interesting Igorrote trio did not fg-
ure as cores pondcnts They were sort
of sul,ry. dusky background 10 the fevered
romance of the poets daughter But, like
a thunder cloud they leaped forth at last
when Mr. Reavis, so the disillusioned trial
bride told the court, informed her that he
was going home TO them. together with an
affinity he had found in Texas. but that
that need not prevent her from going. TOO,
II she cared.
II was then that Juanita decided 20 with
draw from her wedding bargain and TO call
the trial marriage mlslrial. She mad
fixed the date OF her final wedding cere-
mony for the April full moon. the old
ma ting moon OF the extreme ancients.
in the shadowy forests OF The flights,
the wonderful Miller estate in the Pied
mont Hills, overlooking Oakland, Cali
fornia. But some Of the friends she had
invited thought "she couldn't get off as
easy as that" Her legal advisers con-
Hrmed them!
And so all the time that Juanita had
thought she had been living in what the
Greenwich Village parlor Boishevists call
the "enlightcned. advanced relationship of
the sexes" she had been just as respect
ably married as the most commonplace
citizen:
Instead OF being decorated with an orna-
mental little bracelet that she could slip
off with celebrity and ease when so minded.
she was firmly bound by the chains Of
matrimony
Profoundly distressed by her discovery.
Mrs. Juanita Miller Reavs lost no time in
carrying her feticrs 10 the legally con-
stituted locksmiths who knock off such
things if cause can be shown. She charged
"mental and physical cruelty and neglect"
And the California courts, not holding
against her the fact that but few months
before she had declared her mating was
quite beyond such mundane institutions
as legal marriage and divorce, decided,
after hearing about Pickles, Peaches and
Cita and other things to knock 'em off.
OF course. say Miss Juanita's friends
she has been allowed to resume her
maiden name-if Juanita weren't the true
daughter OF her poet father and poet and
musician herself she would never have
gotten herself into such tangle as this
trial-marriage NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS., April mating
moon. Igorrote harem and so on thing.
But Joaquin Miller had, as the old phrase
goes. "his own ideas'-and so has his
daughter. Tho two were entirely devoted
to each other, and If she worshipped the
picturesque. gray old man. clinging to his
mountain top his ways and costume of the
fronticrsman and with the true spirit of
poetry within him. he no less worshipped
this brilliant, full blooming beauty who
was his only child 1t was with a struggle
he allowed her to go TO New York to COM
plete her musical education, and it was his
last illness that cut short the career she
had planned for herself in the East and
sent her back to the little cabin on "The
flights" where the old poet lay.