(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart Gazette, 14 Aug. 1952.
Obviously, burning down your house is not a productive way to address any marital problems you might be having. But it does appear that Alice was right about Rex's feelings toward her.
Alice, born in 1914, was the daughter of our favorite plumber, Charles Lee, and his wife Anna. She married Rex Albany Roll (b. 1908) in 1942. The Hobart telephone directory for 1952-1953 lists the Rolls at 1219 Jackson Street, so they had probably just moved to their "West Third street" house when this event occurred.[1]
The children Alice took to Lakeview Park were Grace, Eileen, and Shirley.
Alice and Rex apparently tried to continue with their marriage for a few more years: they had another child, Rex Jr., around 1953 or 1954. But in the 1956 Hobart directory Rex (Sr.) is absent from the Roll family listing. I can't find any information about him until January 1969, when his death certificate describes him as a Hobart resident, divorced.
Sometime after 1958, Alice remarried, to a widower named Herman Alpert. They moved to Sheperdsville, Kentucky, where Herman died in 1989. Alice returned to this area and was living with her married daughter, Shirley, when she died in 1992.
I hope the second marriage was happier than the first.
I spent a little time looking in my 1947 and 1962 Hobart directories for any listing involving counseling, therapy, or psychiatry. There were none. I couldn't find any in 1952 Gary directories, either. Some quick internet research tells me that marriage counseling developed in the 1920s from the eugenics movement. "While in 1932 there were only three marriage counseling centers in the entire U.S., by 1968 there were 1,800 licensed marriage counselors in California alone."[2] The Ladies' Home Journal column called, "Can This Marriage Be Saved?," started in 1953.[3]
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[1] The Hobart phone directory for 1956 lists the Roll family at 1364 W. Third Street. I can't find any such address now.
[2] Wendy Kline, "The Surprising History of Marriage Counseling," American Experience, 19 Oct. 2018, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/eugenics-surprising-history-of-marriage-counseling/.
[3] "America's Longest-Running Magazine Column - Ladies' Home Journal's Can This Marriage Be Saved? - Launches as Webisode Series," Cision PR Newswire, 26 Mar. 2010, https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/americas-longest-running-magazine-column---ladies-home-journals-can-this-marriage-be-saved---launches-as-webisode-series-89015517.html.
3 comments:
I wonder if there was another woman involved? Women can sometimes get a little upset about stuff like that.
It's quite possible there was! But if so, apparently things didn't work out with Rex's girlfriend either, since he was divorced at the end of his life.
My Aunt Alice. Heard several stories about her past but never this one. Rex was wounded in Burma in WWII and ended up living above a tavern on Main Street. Cousin Shirley was a very sweet soul. Her early years were not easy. I miss her very much.
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