#52Ancestors, Week 25: Fast (Divorces)

If anyone has been waiting for me to put out this week's blog post (I doubt it), I apologize for the delay.  I struggled to come up with anything for the prompt of "fast," but I had the inspiration this evening to discuss the "quickie" divorce.

I've been working on my genealogy for well over a decade now, and something I noticed early on was that Dade County, Florida, seemed to be the place to go if you wanted a fast divorce in the 1930s/40s.  It made sense for some of my relatives who LIVED in Florida, but there were others whose residences were far from the Sunshine State.  

A quick Google search revealed that Florida is a no-fault divorce state and it also offers simplified divorces.  I haven't been able to determine when this started, but currently, in order to apply for a divorce in Florida, at least one spouse must be a permanent resident for at least six months or a member of the armed forces stationed in Florida.  After that, a simplified divorce requires only the following:
* no minor/dependent children
* neither party seeking alimony
* division of property and financial obligations must be agreed to
A simplified divorce typically takes 30 days.

I mention the 30 days because, in most cases, it seemed my relatives were also in a hurry to remarry.  My grandfather's divorce from his first wife was in Dade County in 1944.  He then married my grandmother in June of 1944. I'm not certain how he managed the Florida residency requirement.  My best guess is that he was stationed in Florida at the time.  He also had a 13-year-old daughter with his first wife, so perhaps theirs was an uncontested divorce (still only a 4-6 week turnaround) rather than a simplified dissolution of marriage. 

Then you might remember a "Nobody Knows About" post concerning Jennie Grace Terpinitz.  She was a sometime resident of Florida, and that ended up being most convenient for her in terms of marriage. When her 14-year marriage to Wilbur Lambert ended in Dade County, Florida, in 1936, she had already become acquainted with her next husband, Peter William Amey.  So much could be proven through the area newspapers' society columns.  I'm guessing it was more than just an acquaintance, though, because Jennie and Peter were married in March 1936.

And while a 1936 city directory and the 1940 census placed her, respectively, in New Jersey and New York, she returned to Dade County when her 5-year marriage to Amey soured.  (Surely it didn't have anything to do with the fact that she was more than 20 years his junior...but I digress.)  Once again, there was a quick turnaround on the divorce and subsequent marriage.  The Florida Divorce Index cites her divorce in 1941, and she was married to her third husband, Elmer Clarence Johnson, on September 22nd of that same year.

Jennie didn't have children with any of her spouses, so it seems likely she went with the "simplified" option for both divorces.