In re Krauthoff
| Decision Date | 24 May 1915 |
| Parties | In re SAMUEL VANCE KRAUTHOFF; VANCE SHOUSE MEREDITH, Appellant, v. EDWIN A. KRAUTHOFF, Appellant |
| Court | Kansas Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Jackson Circuit Court.--Hon. A. C. Southern, Judge.
REVERSED AND REMANDED (with directions).
Judgment reversed and cause remanded.
McCune Harding, Brown & Murphy for appellant, Vance Shouse Meredith.
Willard P. Hall and Edwin A. Krauthoff for appellant, Edwin A Krauthoff.
--Herein we are asked to exercise our jurisdiction as a court of chancery in the adjudication of an exceedingly difficult embarrassing, and important question--one that affects the most sacred feelings and reaches the profoundest depths of the human heart:--which of two separated parents shall be awarded the custody of their child. It is an unwelcome task fraught with heavy responsibility. In its performance, however careful and sympathetic we may be, we must walk with heavy tread into the very sanctum sanctorum of parental affection, and, laying hands upon the jewel there enshrined, make such disposition of it as, in our finite wisdom, its best interests may seem to require. It is a painful duty, from which every well-regulated mind must shrink since its performance has to do not only with the tender relations of parent and child, but involves the future course of a human life, and perhaps may have an influence upon the destiny of an immortal soul. One thought, however, affords some slight comfort, and that is that we are in no way responsible for the causes which have unhappily brought about the situation with which we are confronted. We are called upon to act; the heavy obligation is laid upon us; and we have no choice but to meet it. Let those whose hearts are wrong remember this when, in their pain and tears, they realize the effect of this decree.
The object of this investigation is a boy, Samuel Vance Krauthoff, born December 18, 1902. He is, therefore, now nearly twelve-and-a-half years old.
The parents were married December 18, 1901, at Henderson, Kentucky, where the then young bride resided. Her mother, Mrs. Mary Vance Shouse, at the age of twenty, had been left a widow with one child, and the two were living at the home of the bride's maternal grandmother who was also a widow. At the time of the marriage above mentioned, Mrs. Shouse was under forty, and the relations between her and her daughter appear to have been peculiarly close and intimate. The mother was an almost constant companion of her daughter and seems to have held a dominant position and influence in her life even after the latter reached maturity and on down to the institution of this proceeding. She took part in the correspondence between the lovers during their courtship, and, when the ardent suitor visited the object of his affections, he saw almost as much of the mother as he did of the daughter. Immediately after the engagement, the prospective young husband invited the mother to take up her abode with them in their new home which they were about to establish in Kansas City. She accepted, and, in May after the wedding, came to Kansas City to make her home with the young couple and thereafter remained with them throughout the rest of their married life. (The relevancy of all that is here said concerning Mrs. Shouse will hereinafter appear.)
At this time the husband was a member of one of the leading law firms of the city and derived a comfortable and constantly increasing income from the practice of his profession. The wife brought no dowry with her.
After living at the Coates House for a time, the newly wedded pair moved to a rented home from which, in the short space of two years, several moves were made to other quarters until finally they were living in a house for which the husband was paying a rental of $ 90 per month. A lot was finally purchased at a price of $ 3600 with the intention of erecting thereon a permanent home. Before anything of this kind was done, however, the wife and her mother found another lot which they thought brought them near to more desirable neighbors, and the result was that the first lot was exchanged for it at an additional outlay of $ 1350 making the second lot cost $ 4950. Upon this, in 1908, the husband erected a handsome home, the whole representing an expenditure of something over $ 20,000, one-half of which was obtained by a mortgage on the property.
The union of these two proved to be unfortunate. The wife and her mother, feeling that they belonged to "a family of aristocrats," thought much of society and of social prominence, and desired to occupy a large place in the social world. The evidence shows that they were much concerned about the social standing of those whom they were called upon to recognize, being afraid they were not of their set or station. The husband, although a courteous and polished gentleman, had never had time for so-called "society" and set small value upon its glittering but ephemeral triumphs. He came from a family that had neither the wealth nor the time, nor the inclination, to shine in the society world. His mother, the wife of an officer in the civil war, was left a widow in 1877, with five children to rear, and with scanty means upon which to do so. She was undoubtedly a remarkable woman of great ability, and possessed many excellent qualities of mind and heart. This is shown not only by the estimate of those who knew her and testified to the strength of her character and goodness, but also in the fact that of the three sons she reared and gave to the Republic, the eldest became one of the leading lawyers, first of Missouri, and then of New York, while another rose from the ranks, without the advantages of West Point, to a Lieutenant-Colonel in the United States Army, and the third, the youngest (the defendant), is a lawyer of reputation and ability. It was, therefore, natural and also inevitable that the members of this family, in their struggles for material, intellectual, and moral success, would have little to do with so-called fashionable society, and set small store by its allurements and distinctions.
This difference in the viewpoint from which the husband and wife looked upon life was an immediate, though doubtless not the final nor the chief, cause of their discord and unhappiness. Before the marriage the wife seems to have entertained some doubts as to whether her future husband had the social position she thought should be required of the man to whom she should be married, and very soon after the husband brought his wife to Kansas City, she declined to visit or have anything to do with his mother or sisters. This involved the question of taking the baby to see them after it became old enough to make such visits. The father would always encounter opposition to his taking the boy to see his grandmother and many times this privilege was denied him. The grandmother was very fond of children and greatly enjoyed the child's visits. At every Yuletide she had a Christmas tree with presents thereon for the boy, and at one Easter, as the boy was on his way in company with his father to see his grandmother, he wanted to get her an Easter plant and the father bought it for him that he might make a present of it to his grandmother. When it was learned at the boy's home that this had been done, the mother announced that he could not go again. Along in 1906 or 1907 the grandmother became feeble and in delicate health, not however from any contagious or infectious disease. To her physician she so frequently expressed grief over the fact that she was not able to see her grandchild and was being ignored in her grandmotherly rights, that her doctor was of the opinion that it aggravated her condition. Thereupon her daughter, an aunt of the boy, called upon the mother and explained the situation and told her that the grandmother was in a critical condition, likely to die at any time, and that she was in a very unhappy state of mind because of the denial of the presence of her grandson, and asked the mother if she and the boy would not come to see the grandmother occasionally. To this the wife replied that she preferred to have the relations continue as they were, that when she married her husband, she didn't marry his family.
Without going into further detail at this time concerning their married life and their relations to each other, it is sufficient to say that receptions and dinners and similar society functions were given at the home, and the husband was urged to join certain clubs as a means of improving his social standing and obtaining social recognition; and the questions of their social life and of recognizing socially the friends of the husband, were matters of acute differences between them though he never objected to the society functions given at his home. It may be observed here that there is no evidence that the friends or associates of the husband were improper or not of the right quality. So far as the evidence shows they were of excellent character and standing, occupied with their work and the task of upbuilding their community, and taking high rank in the various departments of civic, intellectual, and moral life, but entirely too earnest and busy to spend their time solely and exclusively in the social whirl. Nor should it be thought that the husband was so deeply absorbed in his professional duties as to be neglectful of his fireside. The evidence shows him to be of an exceptionally kind and gentle disposition, loving his home, attentive to its best interests, watchful in ascertaining and liberal in supplying every real or fancied need, devotedly attached to his son and manifesting and showering upon him a veritable wealth of affection from his babyhood to...
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