Charlotte, May 11—Ignorance of the law is the plea of W.C. Mendenhall, 21-year-old Union county farmer, who was bound over to Superior Court Saturday on a $500 bond by Magistrate S.A. Mangum after the youth pleaded guilty to a charge of bigamy. The young farmer boy smiled as he admitted that he had married two women and is still married to two He could not see where any crime or felony had been committed.
Wife No. 1 was Margaret Shaw of Charlotte, whom he said he married at Lancaster, S.C., on July 1, 1924, when she was only 16 years old.
Wife No. 2 was Ruth Privette of Matthews, whom Mendenhall said he married at York, S.C., on August 22, 1925. Neither of the young wives appeared as prosecuting witnesses, although Margaret brought the charges.
“I lived with Margaret three months after I married her,” he told ‘Squire Mangum. “Then I left town to do some work in South Carolina, and when I came back she wouldn’t live with me.
“I married Ruth because I wasn’t going to go through life without a wife. I didn’t’ know it was wrong to get married again if your wife wasn’t living with you.”
“Why didn’t you get a divorce from your first wife?” Mendenhall was asked.
“They told I couldn’t get a divorce because I was married in South Carolina. So I married Ruth after some friends had told me it would be all right, since I couldn’t get a divorce, and since Margaret and I were not living together.”
Saturday afternoon from his cell in the county court house, Mendenhall’s optimistic outlook had waned into one of apprehension. He was in jail and he knew it; but for what, he asked himself. The boy didn’t know what bigamy was until arrested.
“I went to school only two weeks,” Mendenhall replied to a question concerning his education.
Hasty courtship and marriage probably caused the young man’s downfall, he admitted. He met Margaret, wife No.1, on one Saturday and married her Monday at Lancaster.
Ruth, wife No. 2, became his spouse after a short courtship and a wild ride to York, the place picked for his second venture into matrimony.
From page 2 of The Cleveland Star, Shelby, N.C., May 17, 1926
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn97064509/1926-05-17/ed-1/seq-2/
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