And Now You Know: Orange starts 1950 with reports on marriages, divorces, air rifles, and parking meters

Published 12:16 am Saturday, June 13, 2020

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Mike Louviere
And Now You Know

The first Orange Leader of 1950 was interesting…things had happened and things were happening.

The Leader reported that in 1949 there had been almost as many divorces as marriages.

Divorces filed in the 128th District Court had amounted to about two-thirds the number of marriage licenses issued. Divorces granted in the same period amounted to 56% of the licenses issued.

Four hundred fifty one divorce suits had been filed during the year and 386 had been disposed of. There were 687 marriage licenses issued in the same period.

May had been the heaviest month for marriage licenses. There had been 77 issued that month. June followed as the second heaviest with 76 licenses issued. The lowest month had been November with only 23 paid for.

It seemed that married couples got tired of their mates during July. Before that time, they must have been satisfied, only 11 divorces had been granted in July.

January had been a low month for divorces when only 18 cases had been granted. January was also the third highest month for the number of marriage licenses issued.

Getting married and divorced was good business for the county. Couples had paid $1,885.75 for licenses issued during the year. The license was one of the lightest expenses in getting married.

Orange County attorneys apparently had a good income from divorces, getting their usual $50 fee for each of the 386 divorces in the county. Divorcees must also pay court costs and other incidentals on top of the attorney fees.

“The legal future looks bright because 297 divorce cases are on the District Court dockets”, reported the Leader.

Christmas presents were getting boys in trouble, at least those boys who received air rifles.

Orange Police Chief E.L. Nance issued a warning to parents of boys who received air rifles for Christmas. Chief Nance said the city would be forced to take action against the boys if complaints continued to pour into the station at the rate they have been.

“We have been receiving about 18 to 20 complaints each day since Christmas about boys shooting other children and even adults with air rifles, and the damage to windows and windshields is growing very high,” said Nance. “Now Christmas is a wonderful time, especially for the youngsters—but if ‘Santa Claus’ is going to be generous to the children, at least the parents could instruct them on the hazards the guns present and see that the youngsters use them for play instead of mischief and actual vandalism.”

Unhappy citizens were going to have to deal with parking meters and a new one-way street in downtown Orange.

Orange police captain L.B. Hayden stated that beginning Tuesday, January 3, 1950 tickets would be issued for parking meter violations.

“We have been waiting on writing tickets so people could become familiar with the new meters before writing tickets goes into effect. Ticket writing will go into effect Tuesday,” said Hayden.

Captain Hayden also said that people were destroying the one-way street signs along Main Street. People now need to travel eastward on Main Street. He said of the six signs placed along Main Street, only one remained unmolested.

“Beginning Tuesday, January 3, people will be fined for driving the wrong direction on that one-way street,” said Hayden.

It looked as though the first few months of 1950 were going to be interesting in Orange, especially for those driving downtown.

“And now you know.”