Three Washtenaw Women Charge Cruelty

The Daily Ypsilanti Press published this story on Tuesday, September 12, 1916. Bill for divorce filed in Ann Arbor by Mrs. May Rehill through her attorney Floyd Daggett charges extreme and repeated cruelty. She is under $100 bail for carrying concealed weapons. The charge was brought by her husband, August Rehill, city fireman and former member of the police force, when he heard of her action. She claimed the only weapon she carried was a revolver given her by Rehill after they were married and which had in her trunk. Her trial is set for September 15. The Rehills are in court for the second time with in a few months, having ‘made up’ and lived together for a time since March 16. Trouble between the two arose over the management of children of Rehill’s by a former wife, and one child by a former husband of Mrs. Rehill. Judge Kinne issued an injunction restraining Rehill from doing bodily injury to his spouse, and from disposing of his property during the pendency of the suit. Another Ypsilanti case started in the chancery division, is that of Mrs. Nanna Wilkes, who, through Attorney Daggett, her solicitor, chares that when her husband, Emmanuel Silas Joseph Wilkes, left the home of the couple in Ypsilanti more than a year ago, he forgot to pay the rent, or to purchase food for the wife. The name of Pearl Lennox, or Pearl Robinson, was mentioned in the bill as the “affinity” for whom Wilkes left his own home. The bill, according to its statements shows Wilkes to have approached his wife after having left her about March 27, 1916, with offers of reconciliation. She assented and went back to live with him. “But he would not work,” the bill states, and beat her, and had her arrested for disorderly conduct. Another Washtenaw wife who charges cruelty is Mrs. Edith Burton of Saline. Through her attorney, Lee N. Brown she charges interference by members of her husband’s family in affairs of the household. The couple were married in December 1912 and have two children, one 11 months old and the other two years.