History | A Much Married Woman | Back
 

Transcript of a page 1 article from 11 Oct 1906 issue of The Waterford Star.
[Most paragraph breaks inserted by the transcriber]

A Much Married Woman

Detroit, Oct. 5. -- As a result of a petition file in the Probate Court in Pontiac, Mich., Thursday, it was discovered that Mrs. Hannah E. Brown, aged 70, has been married six times, has four living husbands, and has not secured a divorce from any of them.

The petition was filed by Francis Chaffee, the latest husband, who married her just three weeks ago, and it asks that he be appointed her guardian, and that she be declared incompetent.

Underlying the petition is a desire on Chaffee's part to have set aside a quit claim deed from his wife to her daughter, Mrs. Emily Sherman, of a house and lot in Pontiac, that was given with the understanding that the mother retain a life interest in it.

Mrs. Sherman, the daughter, says she believes her mother is the most married woman in the United States.

She was first married when she was 15 years of age, and her daughter says she kept up the habit until three weeks ago, when she married her last husband.

According to the daughter her mother has had the following husbands: -- 
Josiah Brown, Norfolk County, Ontario; 
Samuel Allen, Toronto, Ont.; 
Robert Pick, Middleton Township, Ont.; 
John Horning, Otterville, Norwich County, Ont.;
Adam Crysler, Pontiac, Mich., and 
Francis Chaffee, Pontiac, Mich.

According to the mother's story she was once the wife of a wealthy man. The fact of many previous marriages caused the step-children to break their father's will, and to put her out penniless.

"Anything representing wealth seems to attract mother," says the daughter, Mrs. Sherman, "and as each adventure disclosed the men she married were poor, they were spurned until they deserted her.

"Nothing daunted, she immediately set her cap, and soon another father for me was forthcoming.

"They came so rapidly that I could hardly keep track of my new names."

Mrs. Chaffee does not deny that she married the six men her daughter says, and she admits that she has never secured a divorce from any of them.

 
Copyright 2012-2016 John Cardiff