Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

I thought it was time for this blog to have a little romance, and what better setting than an undertaker’s establishment?  The “Trenton Times,” January 23, 1911:

NEW YORK, Jan. 23.--Mrs. Josephine Grasso, wife of Leonardo, whose friends describe him as one of the most popular undertakers in Sullivan street, won a decree of divorce yesterday after she had convinced Justice Sutherland in the supreme court that "Mike,” her husband's efficient assistant, was none other than Marie Bondi, a remarkably pretty girl. The undertaker's wife testified that Miss Bondi, who is twenty-three years old, was so fond of Grasso that she masqueraded as a young man that she might always be near him, and that much of their lovemaking had been carried on in the back room of the Grasso undertaking establishment at No. 146 Sullivan street, when Grasso and "Mike" were supposed to be absorbed in preparations for a funeral.

Mrs. Grasso said also that Marie Bondi in her character of "Mike" passed a great deal of time riding around on a burial wagon with Grasso, and that not even the trappings and habiliments of woe with which they were environed had any deterrent effect upon their blithe demonstrations of affection.

It was when a client of Grasso entered the undertaking establishment to inquire about the cost of a funeral that the fact that "Mike" was not a "Mike" at all, but a Marie, became known. This client said that as he entered the back room of the shop he was disturbed in his finer sensibilities to see Grasso and "Mike" sitting side by side in front of a row of coffins, their arms about each other's waists and their faces closer together than is the usual custom for undertakers and their first grave diggers. The client was so perturbed that he went away without ordering a funeral.

He thought it was his duty to tell Mrs. Grasso what he had seen. Mrs. Grasso, who believes that It is better to see than to hear, made some purchases herself, as the result of which she had "Mike" arrested, charged with having masqueraded as a man. The young woman was arraigned in a magistrate's court and fined.  She was also told to resume the apparel proper to her sex. 

It was after this appearance in court that "Mike" disappeared from the list of Grasso's assistants. Mrs. Grasso maintains that although her husband and Miss Bondi ceased to occupy the positions of employer and employee, there was no break in their tenderer ties. She said her husband became more devoted than ever after Miss Bondi had substituted feminine garments for the blue serge suit she used to wear as "Mike" and discarded the green goggles behind which "Mike" had shaded the brilliance of Marie's fine brown eyes.

Justice Sutherland listened with interest to the disclosures about the goings on in Grasso's undertaking establishment and at the conclusion of the testimony granted a decree to Mrs. Grasso, with alimony.