I've met and begun to tell the story of another interesting ancestor, a great-aunt named Sophie Mecum. (I don't know how many of these characters will make the final cut in the new book, but it's a blast letting them tell their stories and try to outdo the outrageous behavior of their siblings.) In 1902 Sophie was married at age nineteen to a rather boring labor-oriented individual who worked as a "teamster." This was one step up in the evolution from "drayman," the occupation of her maternal grandfather, Isaac Utter. Within a year of her marriage, Sophie met a dashing Irishman who made his living as a riverboat gambler on the Mississippi River around Davenport Iowa. Apparently without hesitation, Sophie abandoned her husband and eloped with the gambler. Her husband filed for a divorce, in an era where fewer than fifty out of 9,000 marriages ended in divorce, and were considered scandalous. In an apparent attempt to preserve her "good name" a kindly judge granted the divorce to Sophie rather than her husband, and granted the return of her maiden name. She married her Irishman five weeks later.

Sophie's story went from bad to worse from that point, and eventually it was rumored that she had met her demise in a "hotel fire" that was speculated to actually be a brothel.

She is one of nine siblings in a notorious family that continues to amaze me with their antics. Another interesting offshoot of this story, is that within a year of Sophie's divorce, her mother Etta Belle, my great-grandmother, filed for a divorce after a twenty-five year marriage, apparently encouraged by the ease with which Sophie won her freedom. Etta Belle is another whole story by herself. She will hold a place front and center in the book.

This exercise is so much fun; like being 007. I'm so happy to be back at it full time.