An Ypsilanti Family Skeleton

Mrs. Lovina E. Cooper, of Ypsilanti, wlio is seeking a divorce from Abram Cooper, in lier billof complaint exposes the family skeleton which hag haunted the Gopper family since the marriage of the two parties to the divorce suit in May 1882, when both were on the shady side of life. Cooper was sixty-two years oíd, a carpeuter and builder by trade. Mrs. Cooper wa.s then Airs. Ilenry L. VVarts, and had been a widow for fifteen years. lier first husband left her with four danehters, two of whom were married and with considerable property including a $3;060 residence in Ypsilanti. where she lived with three of her daughters and with an adopted daughter. It was on account of the daughters that much of the trouble of her second marriage arose. It was understood .at the time of the marriage that they were to liye with her and she was to support them out of her own money. They were educated young ladies, two having taken courses in the Normal School and lvo beingeducated in the high school. They were members of the Congregational cliurch and moved in the best society. Mis. Cooper kept a servant and soinetimes two of them. After descnbing this state of facts. Mrs. Cooper in her voluminous Wil, charges that her husband contributed nothing to her support further than at different times he had made her presents the total value of which did not exceed $200, while she had furnished him with house, home, food and raiment. She charges him with cruel ty in offering personal violence to one of the daugbters and in circulating false and malicious reports concerning them. He threatened to leave her at various times because she bowed to a respectable Ypsilanti citizen and because slie asked a young man, vvho carne to visit her daiighters, to come in, without flrst asking his permission. He excluded her daughters from the sitting room evenings and would not let her leave it. He compelled her to withdruw from a temperance society. While in Dallas, ïexas, where they lived three years, he threw one of the daughters sufiering from nervous prostration out of the room, causing lier to faint awav and threatening to kill her. In the fall of 1886, Mis. Cooper purchased a farm one and a half miles f rom Ypsilanti, which she set about improving. She gave the üey of the barn to Mr. Coope, who locked the door and refused to allow the horses of guests and visitois of her daughters in the barn. Finally she told him, ïf he didn't give her the key, she would get a new lock with two keys and keep one herself. He said if she did, he would leave her. She did and he left. After four days he came back and went to work repairing the house. In the tneantime she had let the contract fordoing tliis and so informedhim. At this he left agnin and did not return. So that the divorce is asked for also on the ground of desertion .