Shaffer v. Shaffer, 33413.

• Decision Date: 10 February 1921
• Docket Number: No. 33413.,33413.
• Citation: 181 N.W. 261
• Parties: SHAFFER v. SHAFFER.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

181 N.W. 261

SHAFFER

v.SHAFFER.

No. 33413.^a1

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Feb. 10, 1921.

Appeal from District Court, Woodbury County; George Jepson, Judge.

“Not to be officially reported.”

Action for divorce, alimony, custody of minor children, and for their support, and attorney's fees. Plaintiff alleged cruel and inhuman treatment such as to endanger life. Defendant filed a cross-petition alleging cruel and inhuman treatment, and charging his wife with adultery with one party in 1908, and at other times, and with another party in 1915, and still another in 1916. Each asked for the custody of the minor children. After a full trial, during which about 50 or more witnesses were examined, the trial court dismissed defendant's cross-petition. Plaintiff was granted a divorce and given custody of the minor children, Florence, aged 14, Everett, 8, and Fern, 5. The defendant was granted the custody of the oldest son, 17 years of age. Plaintiff was awarded $20 per month for the support of each minor child in her custody until 16 years of age, and awarded as permanent alimony a quarter section of land in Buena Vista county, subject to a mortgage of $9,500. Possession of the land was to be given March 1, 1920. Plaintiff was to receive $150 per month from November 1, 1919, to March 1, 1920, inclusive, for her own support. The court retained jurisdiction over the parties for the purpose of modifying the decree, for allowance as to support of minors and the support of the widow. The support for her children was declared to be a lien on other real estate owned by the defendant. The court also decreed that defendant pay $500 attorney's fees for plaintiff's attorneys. Defendant appeals. Affirmed.Whitney & Whitney and Guy E. Mack, all of Storm Lake, for appellant.

Sears, Snyder & Gleysteen, Vail E. Purdy, and H. C. Harper, all of Sioux City, for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

This is an equity case, wherein it is inexpedient and inadvisable to attempt to set out in the opinion testimony of the different witnesses, or to notice the contradictions, explanations, inconsistencies, and sidelights appearing in the testimony. As is usual in such cases, defendant denies many of the circumstances testified to by plaintiff, as plaintiff does in regard to charges by the defendant. They are both corroborated more or less by other witnesses, and to some extent perhaps by their own admissions. Under the evidence, we think the trial court properly dismissed defendant's cross-petition and granted plaintiff a divorce, although it must be said that plaintiff herself did not, perhaps, at all times conduct herself as a wife should.

The parties were married in 1897. Appellant was then 34 years of age, and appellee 16. Defendant then owned a quarter section of land, with a mortgage of $1,900 against it. Since then they have acquired two other quarter sections in the neighborhood, and some town property in Sioux Rapids and Marathon, also farm machinery, and live stock. Defendant had been previously married, and had a daughter 4 1/2 years old, who lived with the parties to this action until she was 22 years old. This daughter of defendant was married in 1917 to a man we understand to be the same man defendant charges plaintiff to have been guilty of adultery with in 1908. Seven children were born, two of whom died. Plaintiff claims there were several miscarriages or abortions. The evidence on behalf of plaintiff tends to show that she was in good health when she was married, but is now nervous, does not sleep well, and is under the care of two physicians. It is claimed that her present condition is caused by too much work, worry, excessive intercourse, improper care at childbirth, and so on. She had a large garden, planted the seed, hoed it, and harvested it; mowed, raked, hauled, drove stacker team, ran a weeder, and helped bale hay in the winter; milked four to six cows, and at one time she had a thousand chickens on the place, and attended to them herself; drove the school bus for a few months, taking the school children in the district to and from school. It tends to show, also, that defendant frequently used coarse, profane, and vulgar language in the home and in the presence of his wife and children; used such expressions towards plaintiff as, “God damn you,” “God damn your rotten soul,” “son of a bitch,” “God damn fool,” “God damn your rotten soul to hell,” “God damned whore,” and so on. That he called his daughter Rose a “prostitute” and a “God damned slut”; ordered her to leave home on her eighteenth birthday; accused plaintiff of being intimate with the hired man on the place; accused plaintiff of smothering the first child; the doctor said one of the twins died of brain fever, and spinal meningitis, but defendant told plaintiff she killed the baby for spite; said this on the evening of the child's death; when plaintiff told him the baby was dead, he went and telephoned his brother, and as he turned from the phone said, “I suppose you are satisfied now, you have killed the baby.” Afterwards, when he got mad, he would accuse her of having killed the baby for spite; he would have a spell whenever she would ask him for money; the twins were born on Monday, and on Wednesday and Thursday plaintiff had a high fever; at that time, one of the other children slept in the same room with her, and was also sick; she asked defendant to get the child a drink of water, and later when defendant got a drink for plain...