The firmness of his wife...
In which I take a closer look at my great-grandmother's formidable sister-in-law
The newspaper called it “firmness.”
More accurately, it was sheer vindictiveness.
In 1900, the March 28th edition of the Asbury Park Daily Press1 carried a screaming headline centered on the front page:
WIFE AS DETECTIVE
Claims to have proof of her husband’s unfaithfulness
LETTERS SHE DISCOVERED
Crisis Has Been Reached in the Trotter Household Which May Lead to Divorce Proceedings - How the Woman in the Case was Traced by the Wife and Several Watchers.
This sensational story took up an entire full-length column of the front page with an additional half column on page 3.
The wife in question was my great-grandmother’s sister-in-law, Emma B. Hurley Trotter, married to my great-granduncle, Alexander A. Trotter. At the time of the incident, which occurred when they’d been married for several years and were the parents of a young son, both Emma and Alex were about 35 years old.
According to the story, the source of which was Emma herself, her suspicions initially centered on a locked chest belonging to Alex, the key to which he carried on his person. Emma managed somehow to take Alex’s key to a locksmith and get a copy made, and from thence on she frequently inspected the contents to see what was going on in her husband’s life. In that box she discovered the receipt for a Post Office box that Alex had rented 1) under a false name and 2) in the next town over. Emma disguised herself one day and followed Alex to that Post Office, witnessing him taking mail from the box. Now her suspicions were on high alert.
Born in 1864, Emma B. Hurley — christened and known as Emaline Hurley until her mid-teens — was the eldest of some nine children. Emma’s roots were humble. Her father was a farmer and then later a police officer. But before her 20th birthday, she was well on her way to being a prominent member of the Asbury Park social scene. At age 26, she married Alexander A. Trotter of Tennent, New Jersey. Alex, the son of an Irish immigrant farmer, had the brains and training to acquire a position as an engineer with the electricity company in Asbury Park. It was in Asbury Park that he met Emma.
Their 1891 wedding was not a grand affair, taking place as it did in the parsonage of the local Dutch Reformed Church, but it was highlighted in more than one newspaper and was likely thought to be a good union of two solid local families.
A year after their marriage, son Edward was born. And not too many years after that, Emma began to suspect that Alex was unfaithful. Matters came to an ugly head in 1900.
Emma tells the story herself. One day she somehow procured two letters from the aforementioned Post Office box before Alex arrived to check his mail. The contents of those two letters were published in their entirety in the newspaper article. What wasn’t published in the article was another letter Emma subsequently found in Alex’s secret box, addressed to his ladylove - a Miss Wilson — and signed “Little Brown Cot by the Sea.” The letter was certainly in Alex’s handwriting, but the newspaper deemed the contents to be unfit for publication.
Another letter from Miss Wilson to Alex was also obtained by Emma.
In this letter, Miss Wilson complained to Alex of Emma’s too frequent drop-in visits at the Wilson household, where Miss Wilson lived with her mother. These visits were especially nerve-wracking to Miss Wilson, who was in the habit of sneaking out of her mother’s house to see Alex of an evening.
Of course, Emma knew what she was doing in these visits to the Wilson household.
Miss Wilson’s letter went on further to propose a plan to meet Alex the next day, naming a couple of local train stations where they could sit on a bench and likely not be noticed. Thus, on the evening in question, Miss Wilson left her mother’s house and stopped first at the home of a friend. Tipped off by others who were helping her, Emma then arrived at this friend’s house and tried to confront Miss Wilson, but Miss Wilson heard Emma’s voice in the front hall and immediately slipped out the back to return to her own home. Emma followed and confronted her husband’s ladylove, pouring out her anger at the situation and calling Miss Wilson a few choice names. According to the newspaper article, Miss Wilson made no reply to Emma’s accusations.
Once she had finished with Miss Wilson, Emma returned to her own home where she angrily confronted her husband. Alex flatly denied everything - the years of unfaithfulness, the Post Office box registered under a false name - everything.
The article continues, “… but his wife says that he wilted a little when she produced the key to the private chest and told him that there was where she had secured some of her valuable information.”
The article then ends with this sentence:
“What the outcome will be we are unable to say, but it is very evident from the firmness of his wife that there will be another chapter to this story.”
That Emma had reason to be hurt and angry is absolutely reasonable and understandable. That she decided to take this story to the local newspaper was absolutely vindictive. She herself told the reporter that Alex eventually caved and admitted everything, thus, there was no need to have gone public — except for the sake of humiliating Alex as she (Emma) had surely felt humiliated all those years.
Despite the dire predictions of the newspaper, the couple did not, in fact, divorce.
Did they fully reconcile? I don’t think so, although they did manage to have a second child together in 1904.
A year or so after the cataclysmic event, Alex and Emma moved about 10 miles away, to a smaller, more exclusive town. Here Alex went into farming and purchased a gracious house near the river. For the next four decades, Emma maintained a very busy calendar of activities in a variety of social groups such as the PTA, the Rebekah Lodge, and the Daughters of America. She busied herself with her grandchildren. She hosted large Thanksgiving dinners and family weddings in their spacious home. Their 50th Wedding Anniversary party in 1941 was a glittering affair with 200 guests and a mountain of gifts. The local newspapers duly reported all of it. But the guest lists did not include anyone from Alex’s side of the family. And sometimes the events didn’t include Alex himself.
No, they didn’t divorce. Emma remained firm.
Asbury Park Press, March 28, 1900, Page 1. via Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/article/asbury-park-press-alex-trotter-emma-hu/70161375/ : accessed April 30, 2025), clip page for Alex Trotter / Emma Hurley domestic problems. March 1900.
Go Emma! I wouldn't have wanted to cross her. Very bold for the times.
Emma was quite a resourceful woman!