New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1920-09-10
Sculptor Edstrom
Accused of Cruelty
In Separation Suit
Wife, Former Teacher Of
Christian Science, Charges
After She Paid His Edu-
cation He Deserted Her

Mrs. Cora D. Edstrom, formerly
Christian Science teacher, filed a suit
for separation in the Supreme Court
yesterday against David Edstrom, a
well-known sculptor, who lives at the
Hotel des Artistes and has studios at
80 West Sixty-seventh Street. Accord
ing to the plaintiff, Mr.. Edstrom, whose
studios abroad she asserts she paid for,
is now a man of large wealth, receiving
commissions of as much as $4,000 for
pieces of sculpture. Mrs. Edstrom al
leges that her husband treated her
cruelty and abandoned her. She asked
$1,000 month alimony and $4,000
counsel fees.
Mrs. Edstrom said that before her
marriage to the sculptor she had an
annual income of $4,000 from teaching
Christian Science. Her early married
life with Mr.. Edstrom was unhappy, she
said, because OF his insane ...!d un
founded jealousy. His exhibitions of
rage before her friends and pupils, said
the wife, made it impossible for hor to
continue her profession. Mrs. Edstrom
alleged that she betrayed the expenses
of their apartment and spent $4,000
out of her own money to educate her
husband IS sculptor in Sweden.
Sells Jewels and Furs
Mrs. Edstrom charged that the
sculptor left her stranded in a. hotel
in New York and went to California.
She was compelled to sell her jewelry
and furs in order to obtain funds to
join the defendant on the Coast, she
asserts. Il crossed the continent al
most without food,' she said.
1t is further alleged by Mrs. Ed
strom that after she had rcjoined her
husband in California he abandoned
her there. She suffered an attack Of
cerebro-meningitis, and friends had
her placed in a sanitarium. Against
her wishes her husband had her re-
moved from that institution and caused
her to- be placed in another in Chicago.
There, said Mrs. Edstrom, her condi
ton was aggravated by abusive letters
which Mr.. Edstrom wrote her for a
period Of six months. Mrs. Edstrom
added that she is now i'll, penniless
and suffering from a nervous break
down, "caused by his brutal and in
human treatment" Since 1918, the
plaintiff complained, she has not re-
ceived more than $400 from the hus-
band
Mrs. Edstrom said that she has
twenty-five witnesses to prove her allie
cations of cruelty against her hus-
the dispositions of these taken. Some
of these witnesses are Mrs. Philip
Somers Cocks, wife of the British Con-
sui General in Lisbon; Comtcsse
Troelo, wife of the Swedish Minister
in Berlin; Major Haldane McFall, Of
London; Mr.. and Mrs Eugene Bail,
artists, of Paris, and Henry Warning
ton, an English architect.
Edstrom rose to his present emnence
as 8 sculptor from the most humble
beginnings. He himself said once in an
interview that he used to be "a crap
shooting newsboy." That was in OF
tawa, Canada, and the first paintings
he viewed were those that hung in
STORMY Jordan's saloon in that city.
Shipped as a Stoker
The paintings behind "Stormy's" bar,
or scse more obscure urge, sent him
as youth to New York by the freight
route, the first step in his pilgrimage
Of art Europe, he knew vaguely, was
the home Of art, and to Europe he went
as a stoker in freight steamship.
The ship put in at Stockholm and
rings, onions and black bread at q
total monthly cost that sometimes kept
with SO, he worked his way Though q
technical school course and was adj
mitted to the Royal Academy.
His first triumph netted MIN $50 as
a prize. This enabled him to get some
new clothes and a job as super in an
opera company. Overwork caused ~
breakdown, but he returned to his
studies and in six months had sold his
first real work, "Spring," for $1,000.
To-day much of his statuary is in pri-
yate collections and he has won nu
merous prizes in competitions here and
abroad. Some of his most famous
pieces nre Clouds" 1.-THE Siren apd
1.-THE Cliff"