The Poetess and the Annoying Husband
Have you ever just wanted to get rid of your significant other? Just toss them right out of the house because he or she is getting on your nerves? Well you wouldn’t be alone. Emma Victoria Pitkin Marshall who lived here in Hyde Park tried to do that to her husband in 1921. Emma was not your typical housewife, she was a poet and a spiritualist. She was born in 1866 and grew up in New York City but she liked the idea of being a farmer, so she and her uncle purchased a farm in Hyde Park and called it Pinehenge. Her poetry became popular here in Hyde Park and was published in several newspapers starting as early as 1912 and going up until her death in 1946.
She waited quite a long time before she decided to get married. She was 50 when she met and married her soon to be annoying husband, Culver Marshall. Based on a newspaper article from 1919, Emma’s husband was not pleased with the pre-nuptial agreement and the conditions of life on the farm. He believed he wasn’t getting any money from the harvests and that this marriage was quite unfair. However, one of the attorneys in this case came to the conclusion that Mr. Marshall was “not mentally sound” and if that is the case, we can understand why Emma might have wanted him out.
So, in 1921 Emma sued to have her husband removed from her home and farm stating that he was a “squatter and an intruder” and had been, pretty much since the beginning of their marriage. He began sleeping in the barn be did not leave the property. Mr. Marshall attacked Emma’s uncle and was placed in jail to undergo further medical treatment to determine his mental condition. The case was eventually dismissed by the Judge. It seems that the two eventually parted ways and Emma continued to work on her poetry. Emma died in 1946 and is buried at St. James Church. Luckily, she would be remembered for her writings in her later years and not so much the scandal. The Hyde Park Historical Society museum has some of her poems in their collections. Stop by some weekend and check them out!
