California Woman's Divorce Archive

Certified Copy of Decree, with Related Family and Business Papers

Alameda, California: 1891–1910. Four items as described. 1. Superior Court of the County of Alameda, Department No. 3, Case No. 7013. Bertha Weiss, Plaintiff, vs. Moritz Weiss, Defendant. Certified Copy of Decree. Printed self-wrapper, docketed in manuscript, enclosing a two-page typed Decree of Divorce printed on rectos only. The defendant having failed to appear or answer, the court granted the divorce on the ground of extreme cruelty, awarded custody of the minor children to the plaintiff, and awarded her three wagons, three horses, and one buggy, together with a parcel on Blanding Avenue described by metes and bounds, recited in the decree as community property and as a homestead, assigned to her absolutely. Certificate of the County Clerk, James E. Crane, signed by him and by a deputy, under gold foil seal. Decree and certificate stamped "Recorded" in purple ink; the wrapper bears the Recorder's stamp, recorded at the request of R. B. Tappan, attorney for plaintiff, June 1891, in Liber 439 of Deeds, page 65, Records of Alameda County. A small calling card inscribed "Bertha Weiss" in pencil is pinned to the wrapper. 2. Oakland Bank of Savings passbook in its original printed envelope. Account No. 20,020, Bertha Weiss. Six pages of entries opening with a deposit of $600 in 1891 and running to a balance of $1,120 when the account was brought forward in 1910, with printed matter front and rear. Laid in is the bank's Semi-Annual Statement for July 1902, a small bifold, additionally folded at the centerline. 3. Printed trade card, one side only: "MORITZ WEISS, Sole Agent and Bottler for Alameda Co. of the Enterprise Lager Beer. Depot: Blanding Avenue, Between Park and Oak Sts., Ala[meda], Cal." Likely the earliest item in the group. The card gives the depot address only as Blanding Avenue between Park and Oak, without a number; whether the depot stood on the parcel awarded in the decree cannot be established from these documents. 4. Manuscript receipt, datelined Alameda, Cal., June 22, 1895, acknowledging payment of $112 for a windmill tank and frame, with a guarantee for one year, signed Mac Rae Bros.

Good. Docket fair, with soiling and edge wear. Passbook and envelope good. Trade card poor: heavy old moisture staining, a portion torn away with loss affecting the place name. Receipt good.

A decree resting on extreme cruelty allowed the court to divide the effects as it saw just — and here it gave Bertha Weiss the land, the chattels, and custody of the children outright. What the cruelty was, these documents do not say. What they do record is that her husband never appeared to contest it. Surviving collections documenting the woman's side of such a case rarely surface.