100 years ago, a 23-year-old married man named Harry Francis McClune had an affair with a 16-year-old girl named Eleanor Kohler.
We know this, because the scorned Mrs. McClune filed a $10,000 alienation-of-affection lawsuit against her. And it ended up on the front page of The Pittsburgh Press on April 28, 1915.
Harry Francis McClune clearly had some game. His 16-year-old honey says, “Mr. McClune never gave me money, never bought me anything in his life…once I had to ask him for five cents for carfare. But he never bought me even a present...After it was too late for me [i.e. they were banging], he told me he was married, but said his wife was getting a divorce, and as soon as he did, he would marry me.”
She is described (by the female reporter) as a prize: “Her hair is a wonderful, natural gold. Her eyes are blue and frank as a child’s. She has a complexion of pink and white perfection.”
McClune’s wife sued him for divorce, while the girl’s father “had both his daughter and McClune arrested.”
So it’s not surprising that she kept her hamstering to a minimum and showed an accountability unfamiliar to modern American women twice her age: “I see now how terrible were the things I did. And now, I just want to live it all down if I can, and, if being good and obedient to my parents and doing just what is right will do it, it will be done.”
The story goes on to further embarrass this wayward alpha: “Mr. McClune is at his home, 214 South Mathilda St. He is prominent in business circles.”
Divorced, arrested, publicly humiliated. That was the life of 1915’s Skittles Man.
P.S. A few years later, Harry Francis McClune was killed in World War I.
Original article:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=11...91,8525947
WWI memorial:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ance...morial.htm
We know this, because the scorned Mrs. McClune filed a $10,000 alienation-of-affection lawsuit against her. And it ended up on the front page of The Pittsburgh Press on April 28, 1915.
Harry Francis McClune clearly had some game. His 16-year-old honey says, “Mr. McClune never gave me money, never bought me anything in his life…once I had to ask him for five cents for carfare. But he never bought me even a present...After it was too late for me [i.e. they were banging], he told me he was married, but said his wife was getting a divorce, and as soon as he did, he would marry me.”
She is described (by the female reporter) as a prize: “Her hair is a wonderful, natural gold. Her eyes are blue and frank as a child’s. She has a complexion of pink and white perfection.”
McClune’s wife sued him for divorce, while the girl’s father “had both his daughter and McClune arrested.”
So it’s not surprising that she kept her hamstering to a minimum and showed an accountability unfamiliar to modern American women twice her age: “I see now how terrible were the things I did. And now, I just want to live it all down if I can, and, if being good and obedient to my parents and doing just what is right will do it, it will be done.”
The story goes on to further embarrass this wayward alpha: “Mr. McClune is at his home, 214 South Mathilda St. He is prominent in business circles.”
Divorced, arrested, publicly humiliated. That was the life of 1915’s Skittles Man.
P.S. A few years later, Harry Francis McClune was killed in World War I.
Original article:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=11...91,8525947
WWI memorial:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ance...morial.htm
