FREDERICKTOWN — The newspapers were full of contention 100 years ago this month, including an attempt by Mayor Keigley of Mount Vernon to remove Police Chief Peter J. Parker from office for incompetency, neglect of duty, and insubordination.
Or, to put it another way: Their politics didn’t match. The civil service commission dismissed the charges, and the chief remained.
Even livelier was the news that Knox County resident George C. Braught filed for divorce from his wife Mary, whom he had married in 1919.
In the filing, Braught brought serious charges against his spouse: that she let food burn, that she was a dirty housekeeper, that she was a “cut-up” (by which I guess he meant that she liked to crack jokes), that she loved “bright lights,” swearing, and chasing after men.
In other words, it sounds like she was a typical Roaring ’20s “flapper.”
All I could find out about George was that his full name was George Coleman Braught, he was from Fredericktown, and that he was a veteran of World War I.
It would seem that his reaction to world chaos was to double down on tradition and seriousness, and it seems that Mary was not a good match for that reason.
He later remarried to a Knox County woman named Helen Pelton and had a house full of kids with a wife who presumably didn’t burn food or cuss.
I wasn’t able to find any additional information about Mary, but I am considering building a time machine to go back to 1922 and hang out with her, because she sounds like a stitch.
