Rebecca walked out of a Texas courtroom divorced, paid, and furnished, while her husband’s own divorce request was outright denied. The judge handed her cash tied to the house and insurance, most of the household goods and furniture, and even her attorney’s fees, proving that sometimes the court really does pick a side. Rebecca walked away scot-free, while Thomas received nothing but extra debt at 60 while still working through the tail-end of the Great Depression.
The backstory of the divorce
My entire life, the divorce of my great-grandfather and his second wife existed only as a rumor and a painful memory. I began actively searching for evidence of it over a year ago. No online records came up, and there was no index entry under “T.M. Brand, Thomas M. Brand, Rebecca Brand, etc.” I pieced together clues from indirect evidence, such as changes in census records and city directories over time, noting that both listed themselves as widowed on their death certificates. I estimated that they divorced sometime between 1933 and 1940. Ultimately, I had to know the full story and took a step further by visiting the Jefferson County Courthouse and working with their helpful Records Division staff, which led to the discovery of Case No. 46,106 decades later. It revealed quite a story.
In November 1935, the 58th District Court of Jefferson County, Texas, denied my great‑grandfather T. M. Brand’s own petition for divorce and instead granted a divorce to his wife, Mrs. Rebecca Brand, on her cross‑action.1 The court awarded her a monetary judgment of $1,100 secured against his one‑half interest in the Neches Street homestead, $144 for half the life‑insurance premiums paid during their marriage, a specific share of the household furniture and furnishings (including sheets and towels), plus $50 in attorney’s fees and all court costs, while he retained only his remaining separate property and his half of the agreed household goods. Family recollections add that, despite this detailed division on paper, my grandfather remembered the family as “dirt poor” after the divorce and said he had to leave school at eighteen to work, suggesting that the relief the court ordered did not translate into real security in their day‑to‑day lives.
I originally shared this picture on FamilySearch from my father’s private collection of my grandfather and his siblings with their father and step-mother, and I never really understood why Rebecca (3rd row, first person on left) looked away from the camera.2 Was she really the unhappy shrew that she was portrayed to be by others? I imagine that she and Thomas were already having marital difficulties at that time, given that my grandfather was about 17 in this picture, and they divorced when he was 18.
fact from fiction
Family stories painted Rebecca as the villain in this divorce, the woman who “took everything and ran,” and portrayed her as “not a very nice person.” Looking at the decree and the photograph together, though, I also see a woman who, in 19283, stepped into a ready‑made family with her own three children, which must have made the tiny house at 2485 Neches St. very crowded. I do not know the circumstances of their marriage or if they treated each other badly, but I do know that it traumatized my grandfather to the point of his running away from home during the marriage and carrying that trauma with him into adulthood.
The records don’t excuse anyone’s choices, but they remind me that every legal ‘winner’ or ‘loser’ carried private fears we will never fully know.
This case has become one of my favorite examples of why genealogists cannot stop at a single document. The decree tells one story: who got the house, household wares, and the towels. My grandfather’s memories tell another story: of a household left so poor that he left school at eighteen to work and help keep it afloat. Only by setting the court record beside the lived experience can I begin to understand what this 1935 divorce really cost the Brand family.
source citations
- Jefferson County, Texas, 58th District Court, Court Records, 1935, Divorce Decree, No. 46,106, entry for T.M. Brand VS. Mrs. Revecca [Rebecca] Brand, 27 Nov 1935, Jefferson County, Texas; copy of original in possession of the researcher Lafitte, LA, obtained in 2025 from Jefferson County Courthouse in Beaumont, Texas.
- Image of Thomas M. Brand Family, privately held by the Author.
- “Texas, U.S., Select County Marriage Records, 1837-1965,” entry for T M Brand & Martha Rebecca Richardson, 27 Jul 1928, Jefferson, Texas, State File # 12444; database index, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 30 Nov 2024); citing Jefferson County Clerk’s Office, Texas.
- Google Maps Street View image, “2485 Neches St., Beaumont, Jefferson County, Texas,” imagery dated 2024, accessed 28 Nov 2025, https://www.google.com/maps ; digital copy in possession of the author.
