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Case File: Lucy Haley (1930)
[Link to original at Newspapers.com] - Page 3, Column 3
WAR INSURANCE CASE IS PROBED
Woman in Keokukk to Claim Bene-
fits of Policy of Dead Soldier
Who is Said to Have Had
Another Wife
NO DIVORCE, SHE SAYS
Keokuk Colored Woman Asserts That
She Had No Legal Separation
from Soldier Who Died
Last November.
Claiming that she is the wife of a dead soldier, and that she has never been divorced from this many, Lucy Webster, a colored woman of this city, will seek the benefits of the war risk insurance policy which was held by Pearl Franklin Webster, private Company 51 of the 153rd depot brigade at Camp Dix. Webster died in November, 1918, and there is a woman by the name of Alice May Webster of 170 West 141 street in New York who claims to be his wife and to be entitled to the benefits of the policy.
Acting at the request of the officials of the war risk bureau, Chief Hennemann has investigates the case and today talked with Lucy Webster. She claims that she is the widow of the dead soldier, that she has never been divorced from him. Her address in Keokuk is 616 South Fourteenth street. She has been working in a hotel in Kahoka, and comes to Keokuk every two weeks to see her two children, Lloyd and Pearl Webster.
The local officials believe that the woman’s story that she is the only one entitled to the benefits of the war risk policy is true, and they are endeavoring to straighten out the tangle for the eastern officials. If Webster married the New York woman, officials here claim that he must have committed bigamy, as the wife here claims they were never divorced.
