A Bigamist in the Bunch: Orville Wilbur and Nettie Drake: How Their 19th Century Secret Affected One of New England’s Oldest Families

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Who knows why no one in the family wanted to admit that Orville Wilbur was a bigamist? Shame. Embarrassment. Or maybe they did not want to reveal the real story? It was a different era when the author’s grandfather was born in 1894. Divorce was scandalous; as a single mother, one can only imagine how Nettie Drake would have been treated at the market, the dry goods store, and-gasp-the church. Not to mention the financial complications of how a woman could raise children alone. Whatever the reason, Nettie finally gathered her courage and sent shockwaves that rippled from a small Boston, Massachusetts suburb as far north as Maine and west to the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains. A Bigamist in the Bunch untangles the myths about Nettie and Orville and paints a vivid snapshot that shows how a single genealogical anecdote changed the generations that followed. Jean Stone is a great-granddaughter of Nettie and Orville. Inspired by the in-depth genealogy research done by her sister, Joan Adams, Jean set out to learn more. The author of 17 novels, one non-fiction book, and countless articles, Jean is also a developmental editor with many additional books to her credit. The Bigamist in the Bunch, however, is personal. It happened in my family, she said. I wanted to document the truth.