The Washington times., 1920-07-21
BY MARTHA WRIGHT.

Mrs. Emma Peake was brought up
TO believe in the old idea that whom
God hath Joined together let no man
put asunder." She admits, herself,
that it's an old-fashioned idea
Viewing Mrs. Peake casually. one
rather would expect her to have old
fashioned ideas. She suggests more
nearly than anything else a com
posite picture of the type that is i'm
piled when We. of this century. bland
ly admit that "our mothers" didn't
do this or that more or less igno-
minous thing, generally conceded to
be peculiar to this particularly jazzy
time and age.
Mrs. Emma Peake is sixty-four
years old. Forty-fve years ago she
married William c. Peake. a few
months her senior. More than ten
years ago she and her husband
separated. Monday, Mrs. Peake filed
in District Supreme Court suit for
limited divorce and alimony.
DEBATED 1T TEN YEARS.
Yesterday, in the home of her sis
ter, at SO S street northwest, Mrs.
Peake told me-I'll admit a bit under
protest-of the struggle she has had
with herself during that ten years
the struggle between her good COM
mon sense. which told her she should
get a divorce, and an mate dread of
publicity, born with her and nurtured
to almost limitless proportions dur
ing a childhood engineered along
strictly orthodox lines.
Mrs. Peake is twice "A grandmother.
While we were talking, a lively lad
OF six or therabouts came into the
room to show grandmother" some
pink and green and white pepper
mints he'd bought at the corner con-
fectioner.
Look. grandmother" he said.
aren't they pretty?"
"Yes, they're pretty" grandmoth-
er humored. For just a brief second
of light shone in the eyes that ordi-
narily register the passive blueness OF
a still seattle subdued look Of resig.
nation.
Having seen that look, 1 was, I'm
sure, better able to get the real
meaning beneath the words when
Mrs. Peake told me later that for her
children's sake she had refrained
from getting a divorce-that for her
childrens sake she had lived on the
kindness of her sister, with some
help from the children themselves,
rather than invoke the law to force a
livelihood from the man who forty
five years ago promised to "love and
cherish" and repeated the words
with all my worldly goods l thee en-
dow"
These worldly goods, Mrs. Peake
says, bring her husband, who has a
paint and hardware store at 361S
Fourteenth street, an annual income
Of $4,000. OF this amount she has re-
ceived during the past ten or more
years, she says, not one cent.
WONDERS WHAT soNLL SAY.
"1n filing this suit for divorce and
alimony, ] am doing now what !
should have done ten years ago." Mrs.
Peake said; what l would have done
except for the children and the dread
OF publicity.
"I have felt all the time that my
husband should be made to support
me. But my children didn't want me
to get into the courts. / don't know
now what they're going to say. One
Of them, my oldest son, is out OF town.
wonder what he'll say when he
comes home and finds that I've done
It.
"I OF course do not care anything
about the divorce" Mrs. Peake has
tens to assure ono. "A divorce at
my time OF life, you know, can mean
nothing. l have no interest in my
husbands future-his own future
What I want, and what I have asked
the courts to give me, is sufficient