Grover v. Grover.

• Court: Maine Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: FELLOWS, Justice.
• Citation: Grover v. Grover., 143 Me. 34, 54 A.2d 637 (Me. 1947)
• Decision Date: 19 August 1947
• Parties: GROVER v. GROVER.

54 A.2d 637

GROVER

v.GROVER.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Aug. 19, 1947.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Oxford County, at Law.

Proceeding by Editha Glover Grover against Clara Grover for modification of an amended divorce decree by transferring the custody of petitioner's minor daughter from respondent to petitioner. Decree awarding petitioner the child's custody, and respondent brings exceptions.

Exceptions sustained.

Theodore Gonya, of Rumford, for petitioner.

Berman & Berman, of Lewiston, and Matthew McCarthy, of Rumford, for respondent.

Before STURGIS, C. J., and THAXTER, MURCHIE, TOMPKINS, and FELLOWS, JJ.

FELLOWS, Justice.

This case involves the question of custody of Myra Editha Grover, the daughter of the petitioner and the granddaughter of the respondent. It comes to the Law Court on exceptions by the respondent to a decree of the Superior Court, which decree ordered a change in a former decree that gave custody to the grandmother. The exceptions are sustained.

The record is this: Editha Glover Grover married Rodney Paul Grover in 1934, and to them five children were born. The oldest child is this daughter, Myra Editha Grover, aged twelve years. Myra was born at Dixfield, Maine, in the home of the respondent, Clara Grover, her paternal grandmother. Myra has lived in her grandmother's home, and with her grandmother, from the time of her birth. It is the only home she has ever known. Her parents moved from Clara Grover's home when Myra was four years old, and took with them their other children. Myra was left with the respondent grandmother. At the June term 1945 of Oxford Superior Court, Rodney Paul Grover obtained a decree of divorce from his wife, for cruel and abusive treatment on the part of the wife, Editha Glover Grover. No order was then made in regard to custody of any child. After the divorce was granted, Mr. Grover and his former wife continued to live together at Dixfield with their four children until August 1945, when Mrs. Grover moved to Norway, Maine and left the four children with the father.

Later, upon the petition of the mother, Editha Glover Grover, the Superior Court in September 1945, after a full hearing, amended the divorce decree by giving the care and custody of four children to the mother and the care and custody of this oldest child, Myra, to the grandmother Clara Grover. After obtaining the order of custody, the mother went with a man named Harding, whom she had known before her marriage, to the home of her former husband to get her four youngest children. While there, Harding was shot and killed by the former husband, Rodney Paul Grover, who is now serving a life sentence for the crime.

Editha Glover Grover, having then four children to care for and with no means, made application for and received ‘Mothers Aid’ from the State. She now obtains about twenty-nine dollars per week for herself and four children, and she expects an additional sum if she has an extra child. Out of this ‘aid,’ she also has arranged to purchase a home in Norway.

The respondent's household consists of a son Roland, who runs the farm, his wife who is a school teacher, and their son John. John is twenty-five and is Principal of Weld Grammar School.

In August 1946 the mother brought this pending petition against the grandmother to further modify the amended divorce decree, and to obtain the custody of this twelve year old daughter, Myra. At the hearing on this petition, the petitioner testified that with the twenty-nine dollars per week now given her by the State, and with the additional aid she will probably receive for an extra child, she will be able to give Myra and the four other children a home. This also was the opinion of Sheriff Francis. Eleven witnesses testified for the respondent in relation to the grandmother's home; her excellent care of the child; Myra's school, church, and Girl Scout activities; the piano lessons furnished by the grandmother; the expectation of a college education, and other facts that might indicate proper and affectionate care. In fact the petitioner herself, in testifying that her daughter Myra had lived for the twelve years with the respondent grandmother, agreed that ‘Myra has been getting along very well at her grandmother's home as far as food and clothing goes,’ and that she, the mother, had ‘consented’ at the previous hearing that the grandmother might have the custody. The girl, Myra, testified in no uncertain terms that she desired to live, as she had always lived, with her grandmother because she is ‘happy’ there, and ‘I just as soon spend the day with my mother, but to spend the night, I couldn't, because I am very homesick when I go away.'

After this hearing on the pending petition the Court by decree dated October 28, 1946, changed custody from the grandmother to the mother. The exceptions are to this 1946 decree.

One of the most important, if not the most difficult, problems to be decided by any Court is the question of proper custody of minor children at the time of, or after, a divorce. The family ‘war’ is fought by the father and mother, but too often the lifetime scars are carried by their children. Too frequently, also, the principals in the divorce are more concerned in defeating the wishes of a former wife, husband, or ‘relative-in-law,’ than they are interested in the welfare of the child. The law looks, however, only to the child's welfare; and the father, mother, and other blood relatives, as such, have no...