8 - Wife number 2: Isabel

I know that the second Mrs Albert (Royal) Delmont (Jones) is off the topic of Watch Tower history, other than perhaps a footnote. However, her assessment of men which you will find at the end of this article is an interesting comment in itself. Isabel Mulhall (Delmont) was a fascinating character. Albert obviously thought so, as newspaper articles of the day describe how he was first smitten just by seeing her picture. It was downhill all the way from then on.

Albert and Isabel were married in 1896 and divorced in 1903. The Washington Post stated that this was after Albert met “financial reverses.” Isabel briefly went on the stage, before becoming Mrs Sidmon McHie.  Somewhere around 1906 she was in the news for accusing her chauffeur of blackmail, a man who was then employed by Mr McHie.  Sidmon was a Wall Street operator and publisher – and millionaire – you could smell the money. At a hurried secret ceremony they married in 1909. (see The Washington Post, August 1, 1909).

Isabel thereafter went by the name of either Isabel M McHie or Isabel D McHie, and one assumes the D stood for Delmont. She must have had financial assets of her own or been given some by Sidmon, because in 1919 she and her husband made wills leaving the other partner as main beneficiary. This became complicated when they separated acrimoniously in 1925. In 1926 an agreement was forged where Sidmon would give her certain assets and also pay her an allowance of a thousand dollars a month for as long as she lived. But there was a condition. The sixth covenant of the document said: “It is agreed that the parties shall live apart and separate and shall not annoy or molest each other.”

Salmon stopped paying the allowance in 1932 claiming in subsequent legal proceedings that Isabel had indeed continued to annoy and molest him. He divorced her in 1936 on the grounds of HER “cruel and inhuman treatment.” (See Fifth Avenue Bank of New York v. Hammond Realty Co., Court of Appeals for Seventh Circuit, October 30, 1942).

Isabel made the newspapers quite regularly. One occasion she was locked in the brig of a steamship for causing a disturbance. (According to the Milwaukee Sentinel for December 20, 1942, she tried to sue the Cunard Steamship Line for $100,000 over the incident, but the company successfully proved she had been – quote -“obstreperous”). When choirboys practiced at a church opposite her she played Caruso records at full blast! (The same citation from Milwaukee Sentinel). A ruckus at a Baltimore hotel resulted in her being committed to an asylum but she escaped when a Brooklyn clergyman (or someone dressed as one) came to visit with a heavily veiled woman, who exchanged places with her. (This of course is if the Brooklyn Standard Union paper for May 13, 1931 is to be believed.)

In 1935 she made the news again when she was “taken from a train” after throwing large sums of money out of it. From the New York Evening Post for March 22, 1935.

Isabel died in 1939 at the age of 63, after an exciting if not exactly happy life. She had been living at the home of her mother, Susan Mulhall, and her final resting place was at the Fresh Pond Crematory and Columbarium, Queen County, New York. You can check this out on Find a Grave.

Her paranoia was indicated by her will, which provided substantial funds for an autopsy and investigation in case she had been poisoned.

Then the fun started again. Who would inherit her sizeable fortune? Her father, who had deserted the family nearly 60 years before, suddenly reappeared to make a claim. The Milwaukee Sentinel for December 17, 1942 managed to snap a tender moment on the court steps between her parents.

A younger person called a protégé, also made a claim. And ex-husband Sidmon, who was still alive, made a claim. And the squabble went on until 1943, when finally her wishes were granted. (See Bingham Press, February 15, 1943). So where did the rump of her fortune go? It was left to a dog’s home that trained guide dogs for the blind.

And here is the punch line. Maybe it was the absent father, maybe it was the two husbands (both old enough to be her father, and including of course our own ADJ) – but she planned a sculptured bust of herself in her own memory, headed by the words which also adorned her stationery. It was a quote originally attributed to Mme de Sevigne (1626-1696):

THE MORE I SEE OF MEN, THE MORE I ADMIRE DOGS!