From the Standard Union, Brooklyn, New York, 1920 (exact date unclear): Divorced Twenty Years, Wife Just Learned Of It. Mrs. Emily A. Barnum, 62 years old of 216 Forty-Sixth Street, Corona applied to Magistrate Miller in Flushing Court yesterday to have her husband Fayette S. Barnum of 4 West 105th Street, Manhattan support her. She told the magistrate that on Jan. 15, 1900, the court had ordered her husband to pay her $45 a week for her support, but that he had failed to pay her anything in twenty years.
Barnum denied his wife's charge and through his counsel, produced a decree of divorce granted to him by Justice Freeman in Manhattan in May 1900.
"I cannot do anything for you." said Magistrate Miller to Mrs. Barnum. "This man has a divorce from you.”
"Well if he had divorced me this is the first information I have had about it." replied Mrs. Barnum.” “I have been ill for several years and never heard of any court proceedings.”
Magistrate Miller dismissed the case.