Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 November 1903 — A MARRIAGE THAT FAILED TO TAKE PLACE. [ARTICLE]

A MARRIAGE THAT FAILED TO TAKE PLACE.

The marriage of Sylvester Richards and and Mrs. Susie Brasket, scheduled to take place at the home of the groom in the east part of town Saturday evening, failed to materialize. Mr. Richards, it seems, was married some years ago to Mary Olson, the latter claiming or supposing that her husband, John Olson, had got a divorce from her in Kansas. This, it appears, was an error, and she later secured a divorce from Olson in the circuit court here. Richards supposed that the fact that Mrs. Olsen bad a husband at the time 110 married her made his marriage to her illegal, and that he was free to marry again. The divorce from Olsen though, it is claimed, made Mary (or Mabel, as she was generally known here) Richards’legal wife, And after the guests had arrived, the minster in waiting and Richards went to the clerk * .after the license it was found that he was already “tied up” and “all bets were declared off.” as Richards would not insist on the clerk’s issuing the license after he (the clerk) had told him the facts as above set forth. The above is the gist of a halfcolumn article in the Journal of this week, and would be very interesting but for two things: In the first place Richards did not go to the clei£ at all for a license and the clerk knew nothing about him. In the second place, if Mrs. Olson married Richards while still the wife of the former, the marriage was wholly illegal and a later divorce would not legalize it. She was, however, granted a divorce from Olson in 1901, and the facts about the guests, etc., assembling Saturday night for the marriage to Brasket are correct, we understand. But apparantly other reasons influenced Richards to give up marriage for the present.