Missouri Divorce Papers: Fill & Download for Free

Because each has their own niche. Federal law enforcement officers can only enforce federal law. State Troopers can only enforce State law. Sheriff’s Offices usually are limited to the same, but believe it or not, in Missouri, law enforcement is not one of the responsibilities assigned by law as a duty of the Sheriff. The Sheriff is responsible for maintaining a jail, for the protection of the State courts, and for the service of all legal paperwork (like divorce papers, subpoenas, etc). City police officers can enforce state law or city ordinances (usually a combination of both). In some areas, counties can also create ordinances that the Sheriff’s Office can enforce.D

What was your most shocking genealogical discovery?That my great-grandmother’s story of how her first two children came about was complete and utter baloney.She hadn’t eloped at 16 (in 1876) with a guy, crossing the state line from Iowa to Missouri to get married. He hadn’t gotten work as a lumberjack while she worked as a cook in the lumber camp. He hadn’t been killed when a tree fell on him. She hadn’t come back to her father’s house with a toddler boy and an infant girl, only to have her father adopt the boy and give the girl to neighbors.In fact, she had two illegitimate children by two different men, while working in her hometown as a live-in domestic servant. Yes, her father adopted the boy - because as an unmarried young woman, she had no means to raise him herself. Yes, he gave the girl to neighbors - but they were cousins, not strangers, and her mother had contact with the girl all her life. In fact, my grandmother (from her mother’s later marriage) tried to adopt the girl’s children when she passed away at a young-ish age.Then, to make things even more fun, we discovered that my great-grandmother later became a “mail order bride” of sorts. She answered a “wife wanted” ad in a matrimonial paper in 1890 from a horse breeder in Missouri. She was working as a live-in nurse/housekeeper in Kansas. They corresponded for two years before deciding to get married. She traveled to Humboldt, Nebraska (where her oldest brother lived). The groom came up from Missouri. She met him at the train and they got married the next morning, leaving that afternoon for his home in Missouri. She was 31. He was 57. And they were quite happy until he died in 1905.She knew he’d been married before and had two children from that marriage, which ended in 1877.BUT…What neither of them knew was that his first wife had not gotten a divorce, like he had told her to do. They’d been married for about 20 years and had moved from Illinois to Minnesota (where his sister and brother-in-law lived). Unfortunately, his wife was a “fast woman and much talked about” (according to one of his brothers). So, when the opportunity to move on came, he took it. He took his wife and children to the train station, gave them all the money he had (except $2 for his own expenses) and put them on a train back to her family in Illinois. He told her to get a divorce and use any grounds she wanted. Tell them he beat her. Tell them he abandoned them. Tell them he was dead. He didn’t care. He was done with her.She went back to Illinois and told everyone that her husband had gone to Nebraska with one of his brothers and would be sending for her and the kids when he got settled. Everyone back home knew his brother had gone to Minnesota to get her husband and the brother-in-law to go to Nebraska to work, so no one questioned her story. This was 1877 - a divorced woman would have been a pariah in the community. She couldn’t go to church, she wouldn’t be socially accepted. It would have been hell on her and the kids. But, a woman waiting for her husband to send for them? Quite proper that she’d come back to their hometown to wait.Two years pass. She meets a man. Suddenly, she “got a letter” that her husband was dead. Now she’s a perfectly acceptable widow. Who remarried rather quickly, which was also proper since, as a woman, she would “need” a man to support her.Around 1900, her son from the first marriage had written to the Department of the Army asking if his father was dead and if so, was there any pension or anything that his heirs could collect. Upon being told that his father was alive and well in Missouri, the little weasel traveled there to see for himself. Naturally, the conversation included “How’s your mother?” “Oh, she’s fine. Been married to Lucien for 20 years now.” So Great-Grandpa naturally assumed she’d gotten the divorce.BUT…Great-Grandpa was receiving a $12/monthly pension for his Civil War service. When he died in 1905, my great-grandmother applied for the pension on behalf of their four children (all under the age of 12). Because she hadn’t married him until 1892, she wasn’t eligible to collect as his widow. (Still looking into the details of that.)When the application was reviewed, the letter from his son was found. But there was no mention of a divorce in his files. So an investigation was launched.A year and an inch-and-a-half of legal-sized mostly hand-written paper later, it was determined that my great-grandfather and his first wife were both bigamists, and his four children with my great-grandmother were declared illegitimate and ineligible to collect his pension. The government interviewed everyone they could get their hands on who knew him and both his wives. It makes for very interesting reading.My mother and I thought this whole thing was hilarious - to find out that my grandmother was illegitimate. We’re pretty sure Grandma would have seen the humor in it, although her mother obviously would not have done.

The Root of AbuseMy triple great-grandfatherOver the last few years, I have been sorting out the family tree records and trying to place the stories that have been passed down over the generation with the right ancestors. Needless, to say, this has been like doing a jigsaw puzzle with one eye opened and having to find the pieces hidden across a meadow. As I have collected more pieces in the genealogy tree, the story of my family has slowly come into focus.There was one rather odd section with my paternal triple great-grandparents that had me completely perplexed. I was finding both of them married to other people and having had children in those marriages, but my double great grandfather was a product of them on birth records. My genetics test confirmed that these are both my grandparents via tracing ancestors. I was determined to figure out what, how, or why there is this oddity in the family tree.The first thing I was able to piece together was my triple great-grandmother of my double great-grandfather. I put her birth date and her sons down on paper when it jumped to my attention; she was only twelve when she gave birth. The father that is list is twenty-three. This age gap is troubling for our time in 2020. This age gap pre-Civil War was just as alarming. Upon digging further into recorders, they were not married at the time of the birth of my double great-grandfather.There is a couple of year record gaps when I find records of both triple great-grandparents in Missouri. I knew that a piece was missing that told how they end up both in Missouri. I then search his name for marriage records in their home state. I found a marriage record to a girl with the same first name but a different maiden name and listing her as fifteen. This wedding happened two counties west of where they both were from originally. The fictitious name that was used is not used anywhere else on any records supporting my hypothesis that she used a false maiden name. There are no other records for my triple great-grandmother until she reappears out West. I also did not find any divorce records.If all that isn't scandalous enough, there is more to the story. My triple great-grandfather's second wife was fourteen when he married her. He had met her when she was seven. He was attracted to young, physically immature girls.For generations going forward, the men of that family were taught that pre-pubescent girls were sexual objects. This behavior led to a long-held dark family secret about sexual abuse that I broke when I refused to be silent. I wonder to myself if that was the beginning of the secret or just a fragment of a secret that got exposed?