In December 1913, a Mrs. Vetter of Brown
Street, Norwood, in Adelaide, advertised in the local papers for a
“Domesticated Companion”. Mrs. Vetter
was the 1st wife of Theodore Wilhelm Vetter. They had moved to Adelaide around 1906 from
Fremantle in Western Australia. Theodore
by now was running a Contracting business, and had a name for himself in the
local building industry as well as the local German community. He had been President of the South Australian Allegemeiner Deutscher Verein from 1909 to 1912, covering the 25th anniversary of the
Club in 1911, when he entertained the Governor of South Australian at the
celebrations.
Sometime during 1914 Mary May Brice was
employed by the Vetter household. Mary
had been born in Port Adelaide in 1887, and spent time working as a domestic
servant in Melbourne in her very early 20s, but now was back in Adelaide
looking for work.
Now lets skip forward to 1919 and the
Adelaide Advertiser for the 5th of September reports the details of
a divorce proceeding that was being heard in the Civil Court in Adelaide.
Albertina Vetter was petitioning for the
dissolution of her marriage with Theodore Wilhelm Vetter on the grounds of
adultery. Her council was stating that
Theodore had committed adultery with Mary Brice at Greenock between February
and March of that year.
Mrs. Vetter stated she had three children
by Theodore and they had been married in Fremantle before coming to South
Australia. She was represented by the
noted South Australian lawyer Mr. Paris Nesbit.
Mr. Nesbit had hired a private detective –
a Mr. Hurtle Levison Gray, who had journeyed up to Greenock, north of
Adelaide. Theodore was now the Licensee
of the Greenock Arms Hotel. On Mr.
Gray’s first visit to Greenock he had not been able to see or find Theodore,
but he did find Mary Brice at the hotel.
He returned again where both Theodore and Mary greeted him, and Theodore
made the disclosure that he was the father to a child born to Mary.
In July of 1919, Mr. Gray returned to
Greenock, taking with him Thomas Crowley (safety in numbers!!), where he
intended on serving Theodore with citation papers. It was now that Theodore provided a bit more
information for Mr. Gray to take back to Mr. Nesbit.
Not only was Theodore father to one child,
but two, by Mary. Theodore was quick to
the point on how this had all come about, stating that his wife, Albertina, was
very difficult to live with, and that he had so much trouble with servants
while living with her, that the only way he could retain them was to commit
adultery with them.
Mr. Justice Buchannan dually listened to
the evidence provided by Mr. Nesbit. In
fact Theodore’s council, Mr. G.H. Degenhardt, said very little, his client
having said enough already.
His Honor found the charges of adultery
proved, and granted Albertina her divorce, but she would have to go to the Full
Court to get a decree nisi.
A lot had happened between when Albertina
put the request in the newspaper in for a companion in 1913 to the divorce
being granted in 1919.
Theodore’s contracting business
mysteriously caught fire in January 1915, and there were rumours that he had
asked a former employee to set fire to the premises. He then place advertisements in the papers
saying that he was selling everything and going farming.
By April 1915 Theodore was no longer living
at the family home, and Albertina had taken him to court to get maintenance of £1 per week. But by early
November Albertina had Theodore back in court, as he had not paid any
maintenance for over ten weeks. The judge
ordered the outstanding amount to be paid within one week or Theodore would be
imprisoned for 1 month.
However on the 27th of November,
Mary gave birth to a baby daughter at a local Nursing Home in Kent Town. There was no father listed. The informant on
the birth certificate was T.W. Vetter of 8 Brown Street, Norwood, listing
himself as her Employer. 8 Brown Street
was the home Theodore had shared with Albertina, and she was still listed as
living there on the local electoral rolls, but not Theodore.
Theodore’s business adventures seem to be
going in a downward trend, and his name was appearing many times in the local
court reports, being sued by various business men in the Building Industry.
On October 22, 1916, Mary gave birth to a
baby boy, again at the Nursing Home in Kent Town, and again no father listed on
the certificate. This time the informant
was the matron of the Nursing Home.
By 1917 Theodore was living in at the
Greenock Arms Hotel.
So the adultery by Theodore and Mary
covered a much longer time than the February to March of 1919 as stated in the
court proceedings, and despite Theodore’s very off the hand comment about how
he “kept servants” exactly 3 months to the day after his decree nisi in March
1920 he married Mary May Brice at the
Registrar General’s Office in Flinders Street, Adelaide.
The scandal of divorce was extreme in these
times, and in fact the Vetter divorce even made the papers in Perth, in Western
Australia, where a local society reporter wrote the following piece.
In the divorce case
Albertina Vetters v. Theodore
Vetters and Mary Brice respondent admitted living with Mary, who was his
servant, but said the only way to
keep a servant nowadays was to
commit adultery with her. A good servant
couldn't' be kept without doing so.
Oh, madam, suspicious and stern,
Oh, worrying, wowserish wife, See what a lesson you'll learn
From this chapter of everyday life,
For Years you've been blaming the man;
No plea or excuses you'd hear; so we ask you, in justice, to scan
Home-truths that hereunder appear. The lawsuit of Vetter and Brice
In highly religious South Oss
Just proves how a man pays the price When the fairy who feeds him is boss.
The case of poor Theodore V.
Might be any man's any old day, And proves, after all, 'tisn't he
That always leads women astray. Mr. V. was as pure as the snows
That fall from Antarctical skies Till womankind wafted him woes
By picking him out as a prize.
And the simplest amongst us can see - Here comes the riddle and rub! - Unless he had mashed Mary B.
He was sure not to get any grub:
Don't imagine, though he may be caught
Linking Mary Ann's lips to his own, That he ever gives Mary a thought
When at night he and you are alone. Good servants are scarce, that he knows,
And servant girls like to be loved,
And want, by their blokes and their beaux.
To be costumed and coiffured and gloved.
If you don't show the girl what she's worth
She'll learn it wherever she'll roam, And as things often happen in Perth
They may as well happen at home.
Oh, women who shadow the spouse
Who won't go to pictures and plays, Don't think it's a belle in a blouse
That's changing his wandering ways.
Though he shuns the Palladium or
Grand, Majestic, the Royal and Pav.,
Though his stay-homes you can't understand
You would, if you harbored some sav. While you laugh' at the quaint Charlie
C.,
Or at Olga Petrova you sob,
He's got to nurse Kate on his knee
To keep her from jibbing her job!
It doesn't quite follow, dear ma'am,
Though you catch the old man kissing Kate,
That a writ for divorce you must slam
And your soul from his soul separate.
There are always two sides to a scene,
And though you're a wife wide awake,
The cause of the kiss might have been
To reward her for cooking a cake. And if he proposes to hie
To Mandurah, down on the coast, it's a compliment p'r'aps to her pie,
Or her excellent tea or her toast. So, madam, if can you catch.
Your hubby at Armadale green;
Don't try your supplanter to scratch
Or make a sensational scene.
Though she's there as his wife and wears
A week-endy sort of a ring,
He's saving you cooking-range cares
By having this sort of a fling.
If she didn't get outings like this
With hubby to see she went straight There's no knowing who she might
kiss
In a 10 p.m. park tete-tete.
And when East by the Transline you
run.
And you leave him behind all along, It's nice to know he is with one,
Who'll treat him as one of her own!
DRYBLOWER
[i] Sunday Times (Perth) September 7, 1919
