Martin v. Martin

Sloax, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an appeal of the husband from a decree by which the wife was granted a divorce a mensa et thor'o, the custody of their children, and alimony. The charge is “that for some years past the said Robert S. Martin (the appellant), her husband, has treated her (the appellee) with great cruelty, harshness and brutality, and that upon several occasions the said defendant has struck and beat her, and in particular that on May 5, 1929, he did threaten to strike and beat her and did use such rough and cruel physical force upon her that she was compelled to leave their home and seek protection from his violence; that your oratrix is prevented from returning to her usual place of abode by fear for the safety of herself and children and has taken refuge with her mother and sister.” The facts leading up to the separation as testified to by the appellee are as follows: “On May 4th my husband had been away for a long time and the landlady had been to the house several times for the rent and the ’phone was going to be cut off and the grocery bill had been running for1 six weeks and I was without any money and I had no credit any place and he was down with his mother and had been working for his mother, and that was Friday and he was still there and I wrote to him to come home that I needed him, and he came home Saturday night and he had been drinking and got home late from the boat and the first thing he demanded was his ⁴⁸ title. Saturday morning, a title to' an automobile came, a Buick coupé wbicb he had for several weeks, and I knew nothing about, and he demanded the title and I said I would give him the title when he paid the rent and the grocery bill and he got into' a rage about that as he always did when I stood up- for anything and demanded the title and I said, ‘I will give you the title when you calm down—why did you buy a car this time and I not know anything about it ?’, and he said it was none of my business whether he had a car or not, that I wouldn’t see the car, that it was a present to him from his mother and he got very abusive to me and towering-over me and I begun to get dreadfully frightened and I said, £If you will sit down I will get the title,’ and he slung me across the room and I fell on the floor, and of course I was so frightened I gave him the title and he went out.” To the question, “Was this an unusual occurrence?” the appellee said: “This was a very mild occurrence to what 'happened on several occasions.” A neighbor living in the adjoining apartment testified that she “heard an awful noise like a table going over and I heard a scream.” The next morning the appellee got her hat and coat which he took away from her.

She got others and ran to her mother, who lived nearby, and never came back while the appellant was there. She, her mother, and sister now live in the house which the appellee abandoned, she having taken a lease. Two> days later, the appellee and her sister came for the children. The appellant let them have the younger girl, aged six, and he took the older one, aged eleven, with him to Easton, where they remained until he took her to the State Encampment at Camp Ritchie.

There the appellee went with her sister and secured the child from the appellant. Asked what she said at that time about returning to her husband, she answered: “I said if he gave up drinking and his bad companions and tried to make a living for his child then it would be time to think about coming back.” “I had nó idea of going back. I tried it before. This wasn’t the first time