A Bill of Divorcement

After 31 years of marriage, Alois Rick filed for divorce from Anna Regina Rick, his wife, in the Richmond Chancery Court. The two were married in 1847, in their home country of Germany, and went on to have two children together, both boys. However, within two years of their marriage, Alois found himself without a means of supporting his burgeoning family. He left Germany for the United States in 1849.

In 1848, a series of revolutions had sprung up throughout Europe, all fueled by economic and political discontent. Many of these rebellions occurred in the thirty-nine independent German states, prompted by resentment of the autocratic political structure. The revolts were defeated by the conservative aristocracy, in large part due to the inability for the more middle-class liberals and the working-class radicals to form a cohesive fighting force. In the aftermath of the failed revolution, Germans who had participated in or supported the endeavor were forced to emigrate to the United States to escape political persecution. They were known contemporarily as “Forty-eighters.”

Alois does not provide much information on what drove his decision to emigrate, whether it was due to political or financial reasons. Alois simply referred to his reason for leaving Germany as being due to “being without the means of support and with a view to better his fortunes…” Perhaps he was not a Forty-eighter, but simply an unfortunate soul who found himself in the crossfire of revolution and unable to support his family in a turbulent era. He settled on Richmond as his new home and began work as a city paver.

Alois stated that it was clear when he emigrated that he had the intention of moving the rest of his family to the United States at a later date; however, Anna Regina refused to leave Germany. In the almost three decades since his emigration, Anna Regina had become the proprietor of a restaurant, owned real estate, and had grown “an independent fortune, on the income of which she now lives…she is worth quite as much, if not more than your orator [Alois].” It was clear she did not need financial support from him. They had only been married a short while before his departure and since then, as was the implication in his suit, they had not seen each other in person in the over two decades that had elapsed. It was according to these facts that Alois decided it was time for a divorce.

Alois was quite egalitarian in his wishes; he had no desire for any portion of her estate and only asked that she be denied her dower rights in his property. Even their children would be indicative of their 50-50 split. In their early thirties, one son had remained in Germany, while the other had moved to Richmond as well and was currently living with Alois.

Correspondence from Anna Regina was provided as evidence, and there were some hints in the letters that there was more to the story of their marriage that Alois had not mentioned. In a letter to Alois dated 1860, Anna Regina wrote regarding their son’s immigration to Virginia, “I shall trust to you, that you will use your best endeavors to provide for your children. I have done for them all that was within my power to do. It was with great reluctance and pain that I turned them over to the Orphan Asylum…” She also claimed, in a letter to her cousin dated the same year as the letter to Alois, “It is now nearly 11 years, since my Husband has left me & my children, and not a sign of human feeling has he evinced, it takes a great deal to be so cruel to ones [sic] Wife and two Children as to leave destiny to provide for them,” implying that in the years since Alois’ removal from Germany, not only had he failed to provide any funds for the care and upkeep of Anna Regina and their children, but that Anna Regina’s fortune was a recent development which occurred after the boys had reached the age of maturity.

However, Anna Regina failed to answer the bill of complaint to dispute any of Alois’ claims, and so the Richmond City Chancery Court dissolved the bond of matrimony between the Ricks and granted all of Alois’ requests.

Done and dusted. Thirty years of marriage, most of which was spent on different continents, was over and all there was to show for it was two grown children.

And then Anna Regina filed her suit. Her bill provided many details on the particulars of the time Alois had spent in the United States and away from his family.

While it would not be true to say Alois had lied in his bill, he had clearly left out quite a bit of information that painted him in a poorer light

First, she clarified a little about Alois’ decision to leave Germany: “In consequence of the political troubles, and wars in the years 1848 and 1849, business throughout that part of Germany…was greatly depressed, & her husband was unable to get employment. They were poor & dependent upon their labor…after much painful consultation both agreed that it was best for her husband to go to the United States to seek employment…” He was not exiled from his home for fighting on the wrong side of a failed revolution but chose to leave because the revolution and its failure had left him unable to provide for his family. This was a difficult situation and choosing to leave Germany is not a sign of poor character. However, his choices upon arriving in the United States do not paint him favorably.

Anna Regina stated that after his departure in 1849, she did not receive money, aid, or even a letter from Alois for several years. It was during this period that she was forced to place their two sons in the Orphan Asylum, where they were taken care of until reaching the age of fourteen, at which point they were bound out as apprentices. The elder son became a hatter while the younger learned cabinet-making. Anna supported herself, under her own labor, while Alois “utter failed, neglected & refused to comply with his solemn promise to send for, or to come for his wife & children…”

It was not Alois who provided the funds for their younger son to immigrate to the United States; upon the completion of his apprenticeship, at the young age of seventeen, he used his own funds and funds provided by Anna Regina to go to America “to find his father.” It was not that Anna Regina was unwilling to leave Germany for the United States, but that he had never sent for her; by the time Alois chose to send for Anna Regina, she felt she was too old to make the journey and start over in a new country.

Alois had also implied in his bill that the married couple had not seen each other since his emigration. This was also untrue. Alois had traveled back to Europe in 1873 and spent two months with Anna Regina, visiting friends, traveling around Germany, and attending their son’s wedding. It was during this visit, a visit Anna Regina described as “affectionate, full of love,” that Alois confessed he had “taken up and cohabited with a widow woman named Josephine Engel, and by her had four children…” Nowhere in Alois’ bill did he mention his affair or second family, nor did he mention that he had asked Anna Regina if she “would consent to be a wife to him again, he would as soon as possible return to Richmond, and settle with his concubine…then return to Germany and bring [Anna Regina] to Richmond with him in honor…” Despite his failure to provide for his family in Germany, while at the same time breaking his marriage vows in the United States, Anna Regina agreed to reconcile with him.

Alois returned to Richmond and Anna Regina, once again, waited for her husband to come for her.

And then, she was notified Alois had obtained a decree of divorce from Anna Regina, on the grounds that she had deserted and abandoned him. With the intention of defending herself from the false claims purported by Alois, she immediately set for Richmond. Upon her arrival, she found that many people believed Alois intended to marry Josephine.

She filed her bill in Richmond City Chancery Court, asking for the decree of divorce to be reversed and for the court to compel Alois to pay for her support and maintenance. She also asked that he be restrained from selling his property in Richmond, so he could not hide his true wealth when calculating alimony. Unlike Alois’ claims in his letter, Anna Regina believed he was not impoverished but instead was worth between $25,000-30,000 (between $613,482–$736,179 today). Anna Regina asked to “have the suit reheard, and the injustice therein done her corrected…” She had waited for her husband for nearly thirty years, worked and labored to provide for her children until she was forced to give them up, while Alois built a not-inconsiderable fortune and a new family, while failing to provide aid to the family he had abandoned in Germany.

In the end, the court did not reverse the divorce and only awarded her $3,000, enough for her travel from and back to Germany. She returned to Germany and lived there until her death in 1897. She never remarried.

Alois, on the other hand, married a woman named Eva Josepha Kluber. This was likely the same woman Anna Regina mentioned in her bill as the woman Alois had taken up, as the two are recorded as having five children together, the first in 1854 (only five years after he left Germany) and the last in 1870; all the births occurred when Alois was still legally married to Anna Regina. Whether Alois deliberately provided the wrong name, Anna Regina was mistaken regarding the name, or if Eva Josepha Kluber had an alias (which was not uncommon for the era) is unclear. Alois died in Richmond in 1895. He is buried in Hollywood Cemetery.