In the early 1900s, the newspaper-reading public gained a good deal of entertainment from the tangled romantic misadventures of Helen Maloney. Maloney, the daughter of a Philadelphia oil millionaire, disappeared in 1907. It soon transpired that she had eloped with a young Englishman named Samuel Clarkson. After an internationally-publicized search, the couple was finally located in Paris.
When Maloney returned to America, she had an unpleasant surprise waiting for her. Two years before, she had “as a joke” impulsively wed a New York stockbroker named Arthur Osborn. She was aghast to learn that this casual “freak marriage” was still legally binding. Despite her father’s influence, (he was a Papal Marquis,) the Catholic Church refused to annul this union, but the civil authorities were eventually obliging enough to grant her an annulment in 1908.
In 1909, Maloney was finally married with the full sanction of her church…to Arthur Osborn. Yes, this most madcap of heiresses decided she got it right the first time around.
I have no idea how this remarriage fared. I’m a little scared to find out.
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