Week 15, Big Mistake: Some Family Lore Possibly Debunked
- jujsky
- Apr 8
- 4 min read
Week 15 of 2025’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge is “Big Mistake.” I was going to write an entirely different mistake story, but last night I stumbled across a document that turned a piece of family lore on its head. What fortuitous timing!
The tale of Great-Great-Grandma Georgie’s short-lived second marriage is an often-told family favorite. A few years after the death of her beloved husband, Adam Laviolette in 1901, Georgie wed a man named Benjamin Lirette. Like her, he was a widowed French-Canadian factory worker. They were both active members at St. Hyacinthe Church and were married by Rev. Alexandre Dugre on October 23, 1905. During their small wedding reception, Georgie flew into a rage when she overheard Benjamin telling friends he married her for her money. Georgie owned no property at the time but had a bit of money set aside from Adam’s railroad life insurance policy. The money was meant for her boys – not her new husband! She threw Benjamin out and immediately requested an annulment from Rev. Dugre, which he granted because the marriage wasn’t consummated. Georgie harbored contempt in her heart for Benjamin until the day she died, and by all accounts, the feeling was mutual. Supposedly to spite her, the man later built a house on Park Hill Rd, in clear view of Georgie’s Mitchell St. home across the Presumpscot River.
Grampy Phil repeated the story he heard as a boy at his Grandma Georgie’s knee with conviction. It highlighted a stubborn streak and her nearly Herculean ability to hold a grudge, a trait proudly inherited by several of her descendants.
For years, no documentation could be found to prove or disprove Georgie’s account of events. Annulment records aren’t easily available, and a search for divorce records for 1905-1906 yielded no results…though that’s unsurprising. If the marriage was annulled, a divorce record wouldn’t necessarily exist
But a divorce record does exist… not from 1905-1906, but a record from twenty years after their marriage!
Benjamin used the name “Benjamin Lirette” when he married Georgie, but at times he went by “Benjamin Wood Lirette” and apparently plain old “Benjamin Wood” – perhaps as a way to mask his heritage. French-Canadians sometimes anglicized their surnames or adopted new names altogether in order to assimilate and avoid prejudice. He used the name “Benjamin Wood” when he filed for divorce against Georgie on December 5, 1924.
In the Cumberland County (Maine) divorce case Wood V. Wood, Benjamin Wood, the libellant, claimed he cohabitated with his wife, Georgianna Duchaine Wood after marriage…presumably meaning that their marriage was, in fact, consummated. He made the following additional claims:
… the Libellant has ever been faithful to his marriage obligations, but that the said Libellee has been unmindful of the same….That on the third day of June, A.D. 1906, said Libellee utterly deserted your Libellant without reasonable cause and has continued said desertion…That the said Libelle has been guilty of cruel and abusive treatment toward your Libellant…
It’s important to note that the language around Georgie being unmindful of her marriage obligations does not mean she was unfaithful. Infidelity was a common reason for divorce and would have been listed in the initial complaint. It’s possible, of course, that she was cruel and abusive towards him, but equally possible she wasn’t. Benjamin filed. He needed a valid reason in the eyes of the court to ask for a divorce.
Georgie was served with a court summons on December 10, 1924. The case was initially set to be heard during the January 1925 term but was continued from term to term until April – in part because Georgie staunchly refused to appear! Judgement was reserved until July 1, 1925, when due to her continued absence, the court had no choice but to rule in favor of Benjamin Wood. The divorce was granted.
No one can say why it took two decades for one of them to finally file legal papers, but it’s reasonable to assume Benjamin needed an official divorce to protect his property. When the couple married, neither of them owned real estate. By 1924, both were homeowners, and they were aging. Benjamin was 64 and Georgie 67. If he died while they were still married, Georgie would have a legal claim on his house, overriding the rightful claim of Benjamin’s daughters from his first marriage. He may have done it to protect his estate for his children.
Why did Georgie ignore the court summons, and was there any truth to the wedding day story she always told our family? We have to examine what we’ve been told about Georgie by the people who knew her best. By all accounts, she was a strong, determined woman capable of holding a lifelong grudge, but she also loved people ferociously. She was considered an honest person who stood up for her convictions. Benjamin probably did do something she viewed as unforgiveable. It may have happened just as Georgie purported – at her wedding reception – or maybe time coupled with that old game of telephone muddied the details my grandfather remembered, and instead of the falling out actually occurring at the wedding reception, someone told Georgie months into her marriage what Benjamin said, prompting her to leave him in June of 1925 as he claimed. As for the court summons, what if the marriage was annulled? Normally annulments are granted after a legal divorce, but if the ink wasn’t yet dry on their marriage certificate, Rev. Dugre may not have seen the harm. If true, that could explain why Georgie skipped out on court. In the eyes of God, she was never Benjamin Wood Lirette’s wife! Why waste money on a divorce she didn’t need since she wasn’t married? Of course these are educated guesses. No one knows the real story except Georgie, and I’m not convinced she’d tell us even if she could.
Sources:
"Cumberland, Maine, United States Records," divorce records, 1925, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-89S1-K94R-2), image group 005654156, case 3558, Wood V. Wood.
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