Collins v. Collins

155 N.W. 555, 189 Mich. 659, 1915 Mich. LEXIS 839
CourtMichigan Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 22, 1915
DocketDocket No. 161
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 155 N.W. 555 (Collins v. Collins) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Michigan Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Collins v. Collins, 155 N.W. 555, 189 Mich. 659, 1915 Mich. LEXIS 839 (Mich. 1915).

Opinion

Moore, J.

From a decree of divorce with alimony in favor of the complainant, an appeal is taken to this court by the defendant. Defendant claims:

(1) There was no ground for divorce; and (2) that, if there was, the amount of alimony is excessive.

In his oral opinion the trial judge described the condition of the plaintiff as follows:

“She is now an invalid. She is afflicted with a rheumatic trouble wherein her arms are crippled. Her limbs or lower extremities are drawn back. She cannot raise her body on her feet. ‘ She is brought in this courtroom in a wheel chair, an invalid’s chair; and that has not been done for effect. Any one looking at her hands can see their shriveled condition and all that. Outside of that she is a woman in apparently fair health.”

[660]*660The parties were married in October, 1874, and. lived together until September, 1912, when complainant says she was afraid to live with defendant any longer. The complainant bore to the defendant nine children, eight of whom were living at the time of the trial. At the time of the marriage neither of them had any property. They began married life in one room. The defendant had employment in a rolling mill. Later they moved to South' Chicago, where defendant was employed in the steel mills until 1909 or 1910. In 1911 he began to draw a pension of $81.25 a month from the steel company which it is expected will continue during life. In 1910 defendant bought 8 acres of land on the shore of a lake in Van Burén county, and built a house on it, at a cost of $3,500, which has been used as a home and a summer resort. Later 40 acres in the same township was bought at a cost of $1,000. The parties were hard-working, frugal people, and seem to have prospered financially and to get along very well together until after they moved to Van Burén county, although before that it is claimed defendant sometimes drank too heavily. Nearly ten years ago the plaintiff became an invalid, and was obliged to be lifted up and down and got about in a wheel chair. It is her claim that after they came to Van Burén county defendant tired of her and became enamored of one Jennie McDonald, and that his relations with her had become the subject of common talk. She testified in part as follows:

“I heard he was making visits to Mrs. McDonald. He was there pretty nearly all of the time they told me. I went to Chicago. I was sick the winter before, and went to Chicago to doctor, and while I was gone to Chicago she stayed in my house, her and her two children, with him, and her horse and cow was there. Mrs. McDonald stayed at my house; yes, sir. I know it because my daughter was there who was only a little over 17 at that time. * * *
[661]*661“Q. During the time that you were living at Grand Junction on the place did your daughter Marie ever tell you anything that she had observed between your husband and Mrs. McDonald?
“A. Yes; she did tell me. I discussed the matter with my husband. Just before I left I told him about it. He had her in South Chicago for a week, too, across the lake. At the time I talked this matter over with my husband there was present of my children Stella and my son James and my husband. He was going to murder us, shoot us. I told him what he had been doing, and he had been with her all the time. And he wanted to know if I had proof of it, and I told him I did. I told him about being in the city with her, and he wanted me to name one, and I told him what Marie said. ‘Your own daughter had seen things/ And he said, ‘Well, she did, did she?’ ‘Why/ I says, ‘You have got to leave Mrs. McDonald alone and keep away from her, or I can’t live with you/ He says he will ‘leave both of us/ he says; ‘but/ he says, ‘before I go, I will shoot the top of the head of John, the top of John’s head off/ He has threatened me time and again, too. On the occasion of those threats he said he would get rid of us. He said he would come Bob on us; that is his brother. And his brother shot his wife and shot himself in Detroit. My husband had a shotgun — no revolver. The next day he went and got a revolver. * * * After he got in thick with her he went upstairs to sleep, and he would make out he was going to bed, and I would see Mm take his hat and coat and shoes after he took them off in the dining room and carry them in the front hall and leave them there, and get up and go out, because we have got up and seen him he wasn’t in bed. That happened quite a few times. * * * His threats of violence towards me and other members of the family caused me to leave in dread and fear. I was always afraid of him since we come to the country here. Since he got in with her I was always afraid of him. I left the 7th of September, 1912. The next year I come back to Grand Junction and lived there during the summer; kept boarders.
“Q. Where was your husband at that time?
“A. Well, I heard he was down South; and she was with him, I heard.
[662]*662“Mr. Barnard: I object to that, about her being with him down South.
“Q. Was she there about Grand Junction?
“A. No; she was gone the biggest part of the time. * * * I have been a wife to him right along. He didn’t have to go, notwithstanding my ailment. Mrs. McDonald went to my house, and her daughter, and he pulled out a roll of money, and was counting it out, you know, and he stuck that under my nose and says, ‘Smell that; that is your share of it.’ And it was my share, too. They were getting all of his money. That was in the spring before I left in 1912. It was after getting his pension and getting the interest, you know, and he had all that money together, and he was showing what he had, and he rolled it up and stuck it under my nose and said, ‘Smell that; that is your share of it.’ John and Stella was there, Mrs. McDonald and her daughter.”

She also testified to other threats.

One of his daughters testified in part:

“I heard my father say his brother Bob could use the gun, and he could, too. He would clean out the bunch of us. Robert was the man who killed his wife and himself in Detroit. By that I understood my father was going to shoot up the crowd there. At that time Stella, my sister, Jim and I and mother and a few resorters were there. That was the fall that mother left. I never had heard him make any threats before that. The day we left he went to Kalamazoo. The day that we were afraid of him he said he was going to get what he called heavy artillery, and mother was afraid, so that is the day we left. The night before we left he was up all night and searched around, and didn’t go to bed at all. I heard him say he was going to get rid of three or four. My mother was talking with him about his intimacy with Mrs. McDonald, and told him about what Marie had seen; that Marie had reported that she had seen him coming out of the barn together. Ma told Daddy that the night before she left, and he says: ‘You should not believe what a child says; you have got the child scared into saying that.’ That is the time he made threats and kicked the' chairs around. My sister Stella, my brother James, [663]*663and some resorters were there at that time. John took mother away at that time, and the rest of us all went.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
155 N.W. 555, 189 Mich. 659, 1915 Mich. LEXIS 839, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/collins-v-collins-mich-1915.