Divorce Decree for Army Nurse

My husband found this old clipping among his mother's papers. The mother-in-law appears to have been my husband's mother's cousin. The newspaper notice dates from around 1900.

Mary P. Kerr, who served as a trained nurse in the army hospitals of Tampa and the South during the Spanish-American War, was granted a divorce by Judge Dellenbaugh yesterday from Albert A. Kerr on the grounds of gross neglect of duty.  Mrs. Kerr complained that her domestic unhappiness was directly due to her mother-in-law, whom her husband declared he preferred to her. She said that he told her to go and support herself as he wanted to work for his mother, who runs a grocery store. In her efforts to support herself, she became a nurse and went into the army hospital service at the outbreak of the war.