Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - An Unusual Newspaper Article About Your Ancestors

 From Randy (my cousin) over at Genea-Musings:

it's Saturday Night - 

time for more Genealogy Fun!!!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:

1)  Have you found an unusual, chilling, amazing, or fascinating newspaper article about your ancestors?

2)  If so, please share the article and what you learned about your ancestor(s) from the article. Provide a source citation too!

3) Please share your post or information as a comment or in your own blog post!

(Thank you to Lisa S. Gorrell for this SNGF idea.)

Here's mine:

To be honest, when I read the prompt for this week, I burst out laughing.  Not because it is not a good prompt, but because I post so many crazy news articles on this blog that I had no idea where to begin! If you read this blog, you know I tend to write about the scoundrels, black sheep, crimes, and losses in my family tree. So I have seen some crazy stuff in newspapers.  

So the news article I decided to use is none of those things.  It is unusual and fascinating (and crazy) to say the least.  Especially to those of us who knew this ancestor.  

My maternal grandfather, Charles Morgan Tapley (1907-1973) was married one time before he married my grandmother.  His first wife was Gladys Ruth Van Cleave (1909-1987).  They had two children together, a baby who did not survive, and my Aunt Evelyn (1932-2022). (Mom and I sure wish she was still here because she may very well have been to shed some light on this news article.)  Charles and Gladys married in 1928 in Los Angeles, California.  They divorced sometime between 1932-1939; I have been unable so far to find the exact date. Charles married my grandmother, Ethel, in December 1939, so I know he and Gladys were divorced before then.  

Anyway, here's the news article:

Newspapers.com, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Fort Worth, Texas,
Saturday, 28 Aug 1937, Page 5, Downloaded on July 21, 2020

Mom and I are just confused.  We have so many questions and no answers. I have never heard of a Love "Quadrangle."  Why did this story go national?  Were Charles and Gladys still together at this time?  The articles states, "...Austin had roomed in the house of Mrs. Gladys Tapley and that Austin's wife lived for a time under the same roof with Mrs. Tapley's husband."  What does that even mean?  Were they boarders?  Friends? Acquaintances?  We have no idea.  

What I am fairly certain of is that my grandfather, Charles, had to have been mortified.  He was a Christian man; a minister even.  For him to have this circulating all over the country; maybe even to a newspaper back home in Georgia and having to appear in court and testify in front of a courtroom of people would have been embarrassing for anyone.  But for a good Southern gentlemen in 1937? Humiliating.

So unusual is an understatement.