On June 26, 1894, Ella's husband caught her in the act of having sex with another man. She and her lover were arrested and charged with adultery. Yeah. Adultery was a criminal offense in those days. The scandal was reported locally and in several regional newspapers. I can't imagine the shame and embarrassment that was ignited in our family back then.
All I knew before I ran into this little news clipping was that there was a vague family story about Grandfather having a half-sister or something. The family story wasn't specific, but the idea of a half-sibling kind of told me that it was about a shotgun wedding or a (gasp) child born out of wedlock.
Sure enough, it turns out that Ella gave birth to a daughter just six months after she married Newton Keet. Sadly, the daughter passed away when she was only nine years old. Her marriage was back in 1883 (Ella was born in 1856).
Ella and her brother, my great-grandfather, were legitimate siblings, but their half-brother, Frank, was born in 1866, seven years after Ella's father died. No, we don't know who fathered Uncle Frank. So the talk about a half-sister was alway interesting.
So there was some pretty good family dirt I had found. I figured that was that. Then I ran across this little news item in the 1894 Brattleboro, VT newspaper I found on the Intertubes (Library of Congress archives).
Abbott Mason Arrest, Vermont Phoenix, Brattleboro, VT, 29 Jun 1894 p. 7
Holey moley, Molly. A real newsworthy friggin' scandal! More beyond the Cheezy-Poof.
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