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TO ANNUL MARRIAGE OF TWO WOMEN
WIDOW WANTS TO BE LEGALLY FREE FROM HER MASQUERADING "''HUSBAND.'"
Baltimore, June 27 1902. - Mrs. ernestine L. Rauck, who was married last week to Lydia Lotta Sawyer, who had masqueraded as a man for several years, applied to the courts to-day to have the marriage annulled. Judge Wright signed an order for a hearing in the case.
The bill filed by Mrs. Rauck states that the petitioner, a widow and the mother of children, was married to the defendant by the Rev. Anthony Bilkovsky at the minister's home on June 16 last, and that two days subsequent to the ceremony she discovered that her "husband" was a woman. the bill further declares that the defendant has confessed the deception.
The bill is filed against Lotta A. sawyer, or Lydia Lotta Sawyer, known as Herman G. Wood.
If the suite to procure the annulment of the strange marriage is not defended a decree pro confesso will be signed as a preliminary. The proceedings will then be suspended for thirty days in order to give the defendant an opportunity to answer, and if at the end of that time no answer is made the court will order testimony to be taken before a commissioner. This testimony will then be submitted to the court, and a final decree will be signed in accordance with the juge's opinion in the matter.
Such a case as this one, of course, was never contemplated by the lawmakers, and there is no statute on the books governing a marriage between two persons of the same sex.
Miss Sawyer is in seclusion, probably in the city. Before leaving the police station last night she said to the matron, "I want to thank you for your kindness to me while I was a prisoner. I am going to hide myself from all who might recognize me."