Trouble Getting Married Because She Was "Sized Up as a White Girl"

Most of the United States had anti-miscegenation laws (laws prohibiting interracial marriage) at one time. Most of these racist laws were meant especially to prevent black people from marrying white people, but sometimes other types of interracial marriage were also targeted. Often it was up to the recorder of deeds in each county to enforce the law by refusing to issue a marriage license to couples of mixed race. Ministers and other officials could also get into trouble for performing a marriage ceremony involving a mixed-race couple. Missouri was one such state.

On December 21, 1899, a black man and a young woman named Lucy Griffin, who appeared to be white, called at the recorder's office in Jackson County, Missouri, and asked for a marriage license. I. B. Marlatt, a clerk in the recorder's office, told the couple that it was against the law for whites and blacks to intermarry and that he could be fined for issuing a license to them. 

The young woman, whose skin was "as fair as any white woman's and who had blue eyes and brown hair that was straight and long, told the recorder that she was not a white woman "except in looks. I am of African extraction."  

Lucy, who was described as "very handsome," told Marlatt that he was not the only person who had taken her for a white woman. "There have been a great many mistakes made as to my race and nationality." 

Gossett asked the woman, "Are you willing to make oath that you are a Negro?" 

She said "yes" and signed an addendum to the application swearing that she was of "African descent and African affiliation." Only then did the recorder issue the license. 

 But the resistance to their marriage wasn't quite over for Lucy and her betrothed, a "mulatto" named S. H. Harris. When the couple presented themselves before a judge to be joined in matrimony, Lucy had to convince him, just as she had the recorder's clerk, that she was indeed a black woman. Harris became angry at this point, but Lucy calmed him down, asking him to restrain his temper. He did, and the marriage finally took place.  

Back in Sedalia, where Lucy was from, the local newspaper, upon learning of the marriage, got a chuckle out of the fact that Lucy, the daughter of a matron at the Sedalia train depot, had gotten mistakenly 'sized up as a white girl who wanted to marry a negro." 

Missouri's law against interracial marriage was finally repealed in 1969, two years after the U. S. Supreme Court ruled such laws unconstitutional. 

The Case of the Missing Bride

On February 14, 1904, the Sunday morning Joplin (MO) Globe contained an announcement in the society section of the newspaper informing readers that William F. Gray and Bessie F. McCombs would be united in marriage at 11 o'clock that morning by Justice of the Peace J. L. Potter. The 18-year-old Miss McCombs, the Globe told its readers, was very popular and had scores of friends among the younger set, even though she had only resided in Joplin a short while. Her parents were well respected citizens of Kansas City. The prospective groom was an interior decorator by trade, a prominent young man in Joplin, and a world traveler who'd "twice circumnavigated the globe."

The next day, though, readers of the Globe learned that the wedding hadn't come off as planned "on account of the sudden disappearance of the bride." The couple had called on Friday at Potter's office and applied for a marriage license. Gray had gone back on Saturday and, learning that the license had arrived, arranged for the marriage to take place on Sunday morning at his home. The young couple parted on Saturday evening with the understanding that they would wed the next day at 11:00 a.m. Bessie went to the home of her aunt, Mrs. Gardner, on Joplin Street, where she had been staying. There she would dress for the wedding the next morning and appear for the wedding at the appointed time.  

Gray, Justice Potter, and a number of wedding guests all gathered for the event on Sunday morning. A wedding dinner was prepared, and everything was in readiness. But Miss McCombs didn't show up. Gray waited in vain for some time before undertaking a search for his missing bride. He went to Mrs. Gardner's house, where he was told that Bessie had left an hour earlier to go to another aunt's house, where she was supposed to make final preparations for the wedding. Gray raced to the other aunt's house, only to be told that Bessie hadn't been there at all. 

In vain, he searched the entire city, aided by the police. Justice Potter said that, when he'd seen the girl on Friday, she'd been in the best of spirits, and he never would have suspected the young woman, whom he described as "good looking," wouldn't go through with the marriage. However, police did not suspect foul play. Potter said he was dumbfounded by what had transpired. 

On Monday night, Bessie phoned Gray after reading in the newspaper about the sensation her supposed disappearance had caused and expressed regret over the "misunderstanding." She said she'd gone from her aunt's house on Sunday morning to the residence of R. J. Gardner at 1618 Wall Street, where she'd taken a job as a domestic and immediately gone to work there. Gray rushed to where he thought Bessie had said she was, but in his haste, he went by mistake to the wrong address, 1619 Wall. When he returned from his fruitless mission, he was downhearted and thought Bessie was "trying to make sport of him." 

But the next morning, when Bessie called again, Gray answered the second summons as promptly as he had the first, and the couple had a happy reunion. That same Tuesday evening, the two went together to Justice Potter's office and got married quietly with very few in attendance. 

Bessie, whom a Globe reporter described as "really beautiful, even more so than the regulation heroine," remarked that there was a "slight misunderstanding" between her and Gray but that she did not care to go into detail since everything had ended happily.

 

An Age-Gap Romance Turns Deadly

About 6:30 Friday evening, November 20, 1942, 50-year-old Cliff Moore got into an argument with his "very attractive" 22-year-old wife, Sylvia, at Kidd's Place, a combination service station/tavern and dance hall about four miles west of Rolla on Route 66, which the couple had been operating for a few weeks. Initial reports said only that the two were struggling for possession of 12-guage shotgun when the gun went off, gravely wounding Cliff Moore. He died at a hospital a couple of hours later. 

Investigators apparently did not consider it purely an accident, however, because they promptly arrested Sylvia at her parents' home in Vichy. Lodged in the Phelps County Jail at Rolla, she was charged with second-degree murder.

At Sylvia's trial a month or two later, the state contended that she grabbed the gun first. Testifying in her own defense, Sylvia told a different story. She said the quarrel began when she returned to Kidd's Place after visiting her parents in Vichy and her husband accused her of having been drinking with another man.

Moore ordered her out of the tavern, and, when the argument continued outside the building, he went to a telephone to call the state patrol. She convinced him not to call, saying that they could settle their dispute without the intervention of the officers. She followed him back to the tavern's front door, where, she said, Moore threatened to kill her. Nevertheless, she followed him inside, and they walked behind the bar to the kitchen, where a shotgun was kept.

Sylvia said Cliff picked up the gun and pointed it toward her. When she pushed the barrel out of the way, he grabbed her around the waist and shoved her onto a back porch. Opening the back door to the screened-in porch, he tried to throw her outside. He had his right arm around her, and his left arm was holding the gun. Sylvia said she used her right hand to prevent being thrown out, and when she bent over, the gun discharged. 

The trial ended in a hung jury. Sylvia then asked for and was granted a change of venue for her next trial. It was held in neighboring Texas County in July of 1943. At the end of testimony and closing arguments on July 13, the jury deliberated for only 25 minutes before coming back with a verdict of not guilty.

 

A Bloody Salvation Army Affair

I use a lot of short direct quotations taken from original documents when I write about historical events, but I tend not to use a lot of extended quotes.  Usually, I want to add important background details, rearrange the sequence of events, or try to improve the narrative flow. Sometimes, though, it's hard to improve upon the original. So, I'm going to start this story with a long quotation from the Sunday, October 6, 1895, edition of the Springfield (MO) Daily Republican:

   The Salvation Army meeting Friday evening was the scene of a bloody affray which may yet result in the death of one woman and the hanging of another.

   Wm. Winters, who is well known in police circles, had been making love to Mary Grimes, a well known woman of the time. He had been spending his time luxuriantly upon her, much to the disgust of Grace Clark, another woman of questionable habits. Grace thought that she was entitled to all the affections that Winters had concealed about his person and did not propose to divide these winsome looks and tender glances with anybody. She had been casting a jealous eye for several days upon the Grimes woman and had warned her not to do so anymore. But Mary Grimes was not to be bluffed in any such manner. She held a very warm place in her heart for Winters, and she did not care who knew it, not even Grace Clark. 

   Just about the time the Salvation Army meeting was getting interesting, Grace stepped up to Mary and, with murder in her heart and a knife in her hand, she proceeded to cut calico in a manner that would have been startling even to the most fastidious cow boy or the savage Sioux Indians. She plunged the knife through the calico and cut the side of Mary Grimes.

Mary started running with Grace in pursuit. According to the Republican, Grace would have stabbed Mary a second time except that the women were interrupted by a policeman, who immediately placed the Clark woman under arrest and summoned medical help for Mary. Her wound was first thought not to be serious, but she was soon pronounced to be in a "very critical" condition.

On October 9, Grace, appearing in Springfield Police Court, applied for and was granted a change of venue, not to a different county but to a different judge and jurisdiction. No doubt she had appeared too many times in the police court on morals and other charges and doubted whether she could get a fair trial there. She and Winters had been charged jointly at least a time or two earlier in 1895 for cohabitating and/or for "resorting to rooms for immoral purposes." During the past couple of years, Grace had faced several additional charges of "lewd conduct" and at least one charge of stealing. 

Mary Grimes also had a history of minor offenses in Springfield prior to the cutting affray, although her record was not as extensive as Grace's. Mary married G. L. Mahan in Springfield near the end of October 1893, but a month later Mahan deserted her when he stole items from the hotel where he was employed and skedaddled out of Springfield. Mary then reverted to using her maiden name, although her legal name was still Mahan.

The preliminary hearing for Grace Clark was held on October 12. The Springfield Leader-Democrat gave some background on the woman at the time. Her maiden name was Grace Ramsey, and ten years earlier she had been "the prettiest, black-eyed, plump little beauty" in her southwest Missouri school. She was the daughter of wealthy parents, was liked by her teachers, and was "beyond her years in intelligence." She finished her education with "high honors," but somewhere along the line, she took a "false step" that led her down the road to ruin. Grace was now haggard and unkempt with sunken cheeks, and the newspaper said it would "require a vivid stretch of the imagination to see any beauty" in her face now. She had been a "woman of the town for a long time" and was "perfectly familiar with jail walls and calaboose bars." 

Mary Grimes had recovered sufficiently to testify against the defendant at her hearing, and the judge bound Grace Clark over to await the action of a grand jury. 

Unable to post a $500 bond, she was taken back to jail. 

However, I have found no record of what happened to Grace after this; so, perhaps the grand jury chose not to indict her.