They separated two years after they lost the house. She went to Germany since she had German citizenship (he didn't). She was still taking care of several small children. How exactly do you propose she could have not "let" him remain homeless?
The falling in love with another man happened some years later still.
I find it apalling how ready people in this comment subtree are to villify a woman based on their ignorant misjudgement of the situation.
Not questioning the husband's devotion to his wife, but it seems a bit odd to me that he would take an 18 month sabbatical and focus on re-teaching her a language that keeps slipping out of her mind due to brain injury. You would think that teaching himself German would be the low-hanging fruit.
His wife's fortune comes from the same security establishment that her (soon to be ex-) husband was needling. Maybe her parents threatened to cut her off unless she ditched him. Who knows? In any case: it's really lame for her to ditch her partner of 15 years.
If she did, it was a short marriage. She married Henry A. Bergman, a manufacturer of Parkersburg, IA on March 14, 1912[1].
However, I highly doubt it, because Mrs. Stadia's local newspaper, the Meriden Morning Record, had quite a different take on the story than the Times did:
"WIDOW RETURNS WITHOUT TITLE OF "BARONESS" Saw Baron on ship's deck but turned on her heel and walked away–she thinks it's a good joke–he's deported today
The young widow, Mrs. Olga Stadia, whose fond letters had brought a German nobleman across the seas to court and wed her, returned to her modest basement home on Willow Street Friday evening from New York city without a husband and without the much desired title of Baroness. She saw her mail order fiance at Ellis Island but did not think it worth while paying the immigration officials the necessary amount to allow his setting foot on American soil. The poor fellow who had made the long voyage expressly to marry her must return today to his native land on the steamship "Abraham Lincoln" a sorrowful but wiser man. The young woman was under severe nervous strain when seen by a Record reporter Friday evening but said she could pass the matter off as a joke now because she had changed her mind about barons, titles, etc.
Mrs. Stadia went New York on the 12.57 train Friday afternoon accompanied by her mother, Mrs. Henry Ebert. They carried enough money to pay Baron Schuep's admission into this country to which he came without friends or kindred. The meeting was not very romantic. A policeman and a reporter for one of the New York dailies escorted the hopeful widow to the ship's side. There on the deck stood the baron expectantly waiting for the writer of ardent love epistles and promises to marry. She said he was quite distinguished looking but could not pay his way. His financial status began to assume greater and greater importance to the little widow who has been earning her own living since she arrived. The more she thought about her predicament the she became convinced that she was not acting wisely. It was one thing to pay $35 to secure her life partner and quite another thing to find him a job, which is quite necessary even in a free country. Without asking his advice or even exchanging a word with the ardent suitor from Bottlenburg she turned on her heel and walked away.
The two women returned on the 1.54 train. Mrs. Stadia was all smiles when interviewed at her home, she said she was glad she had turned down her German lover because he had represented in her letters that she was the heiress of a great fortune, but claimed that she had told her distant wooer only the truth. She said she had made up her mind to laugh the whole thing off. Being an accomplished woman she was not at all ignorant of the fact that her little plans had interested the reading public of not only Meriden but the whole state and New York city as well. The widow shows individuality in dress and the gown she wore to please the baron's eye was black with red satin trimmings, Mrs. Stadia is employed as dressmaker bu B. Danle's, the ladies' tailor. Her associates say she's a very talented young woman, plays the piano, sings and talks fluently in the best German.
The story reads so bizarrely: A man who loses interest in his wife orders her to move countries to his ancestral home as opposed to just divorcing her? Then she obeys and leaves her children to forges a new life elsewhere, makes no effort to see them again, even after finding out they're no longer with her husband?
The whole premise is so questionable, I wonder if the underlying story is a crime being covered up.
As I noted in the edit to my comment in another sub-thread, their divorce happened before "no-fault" divorce was created. At that time, couples wishing to divorce would often concoct stories of abuse or adultery to give the courts grounds on which to grant their request.
It's doubtful anyone alive today could say definitively, but this could be an instance of that practice. I certainly hope it was.
> from India like my Dad was -- with 2 kids got divorced, and his all American white wife
I wonder how much citizenship played into his decision to marry her originally ? In that case he would have been using her for a ticket on the "all american" gravy train.
I don't think the other guy came into it until later. I would also be interested to know if they divorced before or after the move to Germany.
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