The Emily Knowles saga, that is.
We, of course, already know how it works out. Miss Emily Knowles gave her son over to the boy's father and his wife to be raised as their own, which they did (and of course it was Mr. Spiker's, the father's). She married, as the papers were reporting today that she would, Pearly Spiker's brother, Guy.
Which looked like it might be a happy, if odd, resolution to the sad situation. We know, of course, that it wouldn't be in that Knowles would leave Guy in about a year for another former American serviceman that she's met in the UK. A person really has to wonder what the likelihood of the Knowles-Spiker marriage working out was in the first place, given that they had not met before and given the strained nature of their introduction.
The strain would continue at that, in that the press was getting their names and even their roles wrong. Very shortly the American Lutheran Society (the Spikers were Lutherans) would be reporting that Guy had the tryst with Ms. Knowles, in spite of his being "married to a lovely and intelligent American girl".
Guy, it might be noted, was an example of living patterns prior to the full onset of domestic machinery. We've dealt with this before and how it meant that single men rarely lived alone until they were married. In his case, he lived with his brother Pearly and Pearly's wife Cora. And he wasn't the only adult Spiker to do so. Their sister Gracie also did, with Gracie being 27 years old in 1920. Gracie would never marry.
In fact, the family drama played out in an odd way in regard to Gracie. She had a stroke in 1970 and for a time Ray, the child the subject of this drama, cared for his aunt until he was no longer able to do so.
And for Guy? He did marry again, with his second wife being named Olga (nee Thompson). She was eleven years younger than Guy and in the 1940 census they were recorded as having a five year old son.
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