Mrs. L. Ulrich Says She Was Driven Out of Home

From: The Oakland Tribune, 03 January 1906

Mrs. L. Ulrich Says She Was Driven Out of Home


Leopoldene Ulrich, wife of Otto Ulrich of Berkeley, has begun divorce proceedings against him and declares that she has suffered such cruelty at his hands that she can no longer live with him. They were married on June 14, 1901, and at that time she had a little girl 4 years of age, the result of a former marriage.

She states that on July 3 her husband threw a beer bottle at her and kicked her  little child and chased her out of their home. Six days later, on his promise to treat her as a wife, she returned to him, only to be again threatened and abused.

In October, he threatened her with a cleaver, struck her child and applied vile epithets to her. In November, he threatened to kill her with a knife, and then make an end of himself.

In December last he broke the furniture in the house and refused to let her or her child get out of bed until 3 p.m., and on Christmas Day, he drove her out of the house and told her to get a divorce. She says she has often been obliged to flee to a neighbor's for protection, and that the incidents enumerated are but a few of the many times he has beaten her.

She says there is a cottage standing in their joint names which was purchased with her separate money, and which they live in as their home, and this she asks to have set aside to her. He earns $50 a month, she says, and she asks for sufficient to enable her to live.