from The Republican (Danville, Indiana)--issue of Thursday, December 6, 1906—page 1, column 3:
WAR CAUSES LOSS
COL. BARNETT FILES CROSS-COMPLAINT IN DIVORCE CASE
TRIAL COMES UP NEXT WEEK
Counter-Charges in Legal Tangle of Well Known People
With the filing of the cross-complaint by John T. Barnett in the divorce proceedings instituted by Mrs. Barnett, it is evident that a lively legal fight will be on when the case is called Friday of next week.
Asserting that she informed him that she did not propose to wash dishes and cook for him after he had lost his fortune, Col. John T. Barnett has filed a cross complaint in the Superior court for divorce from Mrs. Cora C. Barnett, says the Indianapolis Star.
Miss Barnett was Miss Cora Campbell, daughter of L.M. Campbell, who was at the time of his death one of the best known lawyers in this part of the State. Their home was in Danville, and there Col. Barnett lived for many years. Col. and Mrs. Barnett were married at Danville in 1892.
At the time of the marriage, Col. Barnett was able to provide luxuries for his wife, for he had amassed a considerable fortune and received an annual income as a retired officer. They were happy then, but their happiness came to an end, he says, when his money slipped away from him.
When troops were needed for the Spanish-American war, Col. Barnett responded immediately and went to the front, leaving his business interests to care for themselves. Thus, his friends say he lost his fortune. According to the cross-complaint, the failure of a drug business in which he was engaged cost him $29,000 and later the rest of his fortune was lost.
The colonel complains that his wife refused to sympathise [sic] with him at the loss of his fortune and that she failed to love him and to care for him when his health began to wane. The cross-complaint charges that while he was ill and under the care of a physician, she would leave him for extended visits with friends, though she well knew that he needed her at home.
The husband charges that when he explained to her that they would have to economize if they were to live within his income she was not willing to do her part. She refused to do the house work, he says, and made unreasonable demands for money.
Col. Barnett has a son, Chester Barnett, who is in school at Westpoint [sic], and his deposition has been taken for use in the trial of the case.
Smith, Duncan, Hornbrook and Smith represent the wife. In her complaint, she merely charged cruel treatment, without specifically stating of what this constituted. She said that his treatment was such as to compel her to leave him June 17 of this year.
from The Republican (Danville, Indiana)--issue of Thursday, December 20, 1906—page 1, columns 4-5:
SAD MARITAL STORY
WIFE VICTIM OF MANY PETTY AND CRUEL ACTS
DEFENDANT DOES NOT APPEAR
Divorce Granted Plaintiff in Case of Barnett vs. Barnett
Judge McMaster, of Indianapolis, Friday granted a divorce to Mrs. Cora C. Barnett from John T. Barnett. The evidence was such as to arouse very general sympathy for the plaintiff. The defendant was not in court personally and no evidence was offered in his behalf. His cross-complaint filed two weeks before was evidently a bit of sensation for newspaper use only.
Mrs. Barnett told a story of unusual cruelty and petty persecutions. “He never requested me to do a thing for him in his life. He ordered me,” she said. He assaulted her. One of these assaults she said was because she had left the refrigerator open and he was afraid that the ice would melt. She said he jerked her about and told her that he would teach her to mind him, asking if she did not remember that he had told her to keep the refrigerator door closed.
Mrs. Barnett said that her husband compelled her to buy her own clothing out of her income of $500 [a] year from property she had at Danville. She said that on one occasion he bought her a dress pattern—at a bargain—but that it cost more to have it made up than the goods had cost and that she paid for the making. Again, she said, he brought her some lace from Mexico.
“And when he would be angry he would demand that I return that lace,” she said.
“Did you?” asked Mr. Duncan.
“Yes, I gave it back within a month after he had given it to me,” she said. “Then the next Christmas he gave it back to me as a Christmas gift.”
“And you still have it?”
“Oh, no,” she said, “he demanded it again when we separated and I gave it to him. He still has it.”
She said that Col. Barnett and his son, Chester, kept saddle horses, but that the colonel protested loudly whenever she asked him for a carriage.
Before their separation, which took place last June and was according to the wife, the result of a violent assault, they lived at Twentieth and Delaware streets, Miss Ethel Moore and her mother, Mrs. Louise Moore, lived with them for some time and they verified much of Mrs. Barnett's testimony.
“I can best illustrate Col. Barnett's attitude toward his wife by relating a little Kentucky story, as he called it, which he told, himself, at the dinner table,” said Miss Moore to Judge McMaster.
“Col. Barnett said there was once a Kentucky gentleman who objected to his wife going out driving. 'I intend to have the horse hitched to the carriage and go driving as I have arranged, for the horse is mine and I can do anything I please with it,' said the defiant wife. Thereupon the Kentucky gentleman, Col. Barnett said, took his buggy whip and gave his wife a sound thrashing.
“'That is the way some women have to be treated by their husbands,' Col. Barnett exclaimed after telling the story. 'Some wives need to be thrashed!'
“And that was his attitude towards Mrs. Barnett. He was continually quarreling and cursing at her. It was just like perpetual motion. One night after I had gone to bed, I heard her cry out for my mother, and I concluded something serious was the matter. I went out into the hallway and saw Col. Barnett clutching at her neck. She took refuge in my room, and I locked the door. He pounded on the door and said he would break it open if I did not send her out, but she remained with me all night.”
At another time Miss Moore said that Col. Barnett said that stepmothers were mean enough to do anything, referring to Mrs. Barnett who was his second wife. Witnesses said, however, that Mrs. Barnett was very attentive to Chester, Col. Barnett's son who is at West Point.
“Col. Barnett who was continually referring to his first wife,” said Miss Moore. “He remarked that his first wife dressed nicer and looked neater on less money than his second wife spent.”
Mrs. Louise Moore, who rented the Barnett residence at the corner of Delaware and Twentieth streets, said that she had seen marks on Mrs. Barnett's arm, showing where the colonel had bitten her.
Mrs. Moore said that when Mrs. Barnett would try to tell something the colonel would break in, shouting, “I, I, I, I, I! You always want to make yourself out as the Big I,” at the top of his voice. On one occasion when he was preparing for a trip to Mexico, the witness said, Col. Barnett ordered his wife to go to the attic for a piece of clean flannel to clean his shoes. On another occasion, she said, she and the Barnetts got up early one morning to see an eclipse of the sun, and the colonel flew into an awful rage because Mrs. Barnett had neglected to get a smoked glass for him.
Mrs. Adams, a sister of Mrs. Barnett, confirmed the story about the teeth prints on Mrs. Barnett's arm, which were said to have been made by the colonel and told how she had returned with Mrs. Barnett to the home after one of the assaults.
“I will never lay hold of you again,” Col. Barnett is said to have pledged his wife.
“Tomorrow, you would have me by the throat, if I remained,” she was reported to have replied.
Mrs. Barnett said that she had a private income of $500 a year from her property and that Col. Barnett received $130 a month from the government as a retired army officer. She said that she was obliged to buy all her clothing with her own money, and that the only thing he purchased for her in that line was a dress pattern during the first of their marriage, which was about 15 years ago. Col. Barnett objected to her church and Y.W.C.A. work, she said.
Mrs. Barnett said that one of the most humiliating events of their married life was a few months ago, when she and the colonel attended a lecture at Tomlinson hall. She did not leave the hall as the colonel wished, she said, and he slipped away, taking her purse with him. She was compelled to ride home on the car, without having a fare, she said, and found her husband in bed when she arrived.
Col. Barnett was not present at the trial.