The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1920-05-26
COMMON LAW WEE
WINS DIVORCE AND
: HALF RICH ESTATE
Court of Civil Appeals in Texas
Rewards Woman for Thirty
/. Years of Drudgery

Fort Worth, Texas, May 26.-Back
of the decision of the Court OF Civil
Appeal at Amarilli in affirming the
judgment OF the District Court ana
approving the findings of jury
which gave Mary Green Bobbitt a
divorce and half interest in the
estate of Israel R. Bobbitt, estimated
to be worth half a million dollars,
lies the story Of a, woman's unselfish-
devotion and self sacrifice and a
mans base ingratitude unparalleled
in the annals of Texas jurisprudence.
The question of divorce in COM
mon-law marriage and a division of
common property were the chief
legal points at issue in the case, but
throughout the long legal fight, now
believed at an end, the question of
moral obligation was paramount to
all others.
After thirty years. of drudgery,
during which she bore son, now
Ebitt ZealOusly guarded the interests
of her Husband" Israel, and he &C
ecumulated a fortune of over half
a million dollars. AS her reward she
found herself suddenly cast aside at
the age of fifty-two, a gray-haired
wreck. Another-a younger and
handsomer woman-took her place
after brief courtship which termin-
:ated in the marriage of Bobbitt.
Cast adrift with a brief note saying
ave quit" from Bobbitt, Mary Green
sought to establish the legality of her
,common-law marriage, the legitimacy
of her child and to secure division
of the estate she had by hard work
helped accumulate.
A jury, composed mainly of young
men, heard the evidence at Sherman
last July before Judge Silas Hare, of
the District Court. On the findings
of that jury Judge Hare held that
Mary Green Bobbitt was the common
law wife of Israel r. Bobbitt, now
"a prominent citizen of Sherman, and
that as such she was entitled to share
alike in his estate and entitled to get
"a divorce from him.
The trial before Judge Hare re-
quired three weeks, during which
great mass of testimony was taken,
all tending to show the devotion Of
woman who was content simply to
climb up behind her young LOchin-
var with no other VOW than simple
'I WILL" and with none other present
beside the contracting parties, Mary
Elizabeth Green, eighteen, and Israel
r. Bobbitt, twenty-four.
He had met her at the home of her
parents near Pennington, Texas,
Christmas Eve, 1885. After brief
.courtship he induced her to take the
step that led to a life of drudgery
and finally ended in her being cast
off-''a cook, very good camp cook,
but not his wife," as the second Mrs.
j. Bobbitt put it when questioned in
reference to the strange triangle af-
ter the trial.
Admittedly poor and illiterate, Mrs.
Bobbitt's simple, mistaken story
made deep impression on the jury
which heard the evidence.
II never got near the city much
until 1915, when I went to Natchez
to get our boy educated" she testi-
fed "Then in June. 1917, I think
it was, Bobbitt simply wrote to me
I've quit"
That was the last she saw of Bob
>'bitt until she faced him in the court
room at Sherman.
He had written a number, of times
but when Mrs. Bobbitt learned that
he had married Mrs. Rowena Smith
Coover, daughter Of R. E. alfalfa
King) Smith she began the legal pro-
ceedings which ended in her secur-
ing a divorce from her common-law
husband and recognition Of her right
to a half interest in the estate she
had by years of privation and hard
ship helped to accumulate.