1915-10-27-New York Tribune-New Haven Wife Sues V J Mayo

NEW HAVEN WIFE SUES V. J. MAYO; DEMANDS $250,000

New York Tribune, 27 October 1915, page 1

Bases Action Against Manufacturer Upon Her Bigamous Marriage.

COOK CASE EXPOSED PREVIOUS WEDDING

Plaintiff Met Him in a Jail and Became Bride in Mormon Church In Brooklyn.

Wilhelmina Meyer, the New Haven "wife" of Virginus J. Mayo, he of the many pseudo-matrimonial entanglements which were exposed last March when Lillian May Cook, his stenographer, committed suicide, has at last turned against the rich manufacturer and brought suit against him in the Supreme Court yesterday for $250,000.

Through the cloud of denunciation which enveloped Mayo, following the discorery of Miss Cook's body on West Rock, near New Haven, with a revolver clasped in her hand, the woman who had filled the place of his wife in the New England town stood by him. When Mayo's first wife in Scranton brought a suit for divorce for desertion, and his second wife in Brooklyn was discovered, to be followed by three or four other women who claimed relationship with him, Wilhelmina Meyer, realizing for the first time that she was not his true wife, remained silent.

Only yesterday she began action against him, charging fraud. The woman, who is little more than thirty, says that Mayo swore to her that he was a single man when she promised to marry him.

For nearly ten years she lived with the manufacturer in New Haven as his wife, not knowing that he had deserted his lawful mate, Florence Weeks Mayo, whom he married in Binghamton in 1890, and who was then living with her three daughters in Scranton, Penn. Mayo had told Miss Meyer that he had been married before, but that his wife was dead. His wife, on the other hand, believed him to be dead until his picture was published in the newspapers at the time of the Cook scandal.

Despite a former bitter experience, the girl believed him. Her meeting with the manufacturer had been unusual and in a manner prophetic. She was engaged to marry a Dane——Alfred Peterson——but discovered that he already had a wife and children. He was arrested and jailed in Newark, where the girl lived with her grandparents. On visiting him one day she met the suave and courtly Mayo, also a visitor to the jail.

The couple were married in the Mormon Church of Brooklyn on April 2, 1904. Soon thereafter they went to New Haven, where Mayo had a prosperous business. The man became entangled with Lois Waterbury, for whom he set up an establishment in Brooklyn, where she bore him children under the name of Mrs. Dudley. Susie Wahlers, his stenographer in New Haven; Lillian Cook, also his stenographer, and several other women are believed to have had improper relations with him.

Immediately after the Cook girl's suicide Mrs. Florence Weeks Mayo, the manufacturer's first wife, brought suit for divorce. Susie Wahlers and several others then came forward, claiming that their children also were Mayo's and demanding reparation.

The New Haven "wife" of the much married man is suing for damages for fraud and not for an annulment of the marriage. It is expected, hosvever, that evidence presented at the trial will make the annulment a matter of sequence. The woman is said to be the niece of Henry Stengel, a rich leather manufacturer. He was a survivor of the Titanic disaster, but has since died.