Not so happy!

The other day while researching the story about relatives at Nettle Lake, I came across this story of my great-great-grandpa Wm.H.McLain. It appears that my 3x grandpa married a widow named Hester Pew who had three kids from her prior marriage. Grandpa married her with kids of her own, and his plus together they had three more. After approx. 5-7 yrs of marriage Hester filed for divorce claiming that she had limited means and that grandpa had failed to provide her with any necessities of life, and had willingly been absent for three years. She further claimed that grandpa had remained idle but was physically capable of working. She requested and received custody of the children and reasonable alimony; and was also able to keep the 40 acres of land that had originally been hers. Grandpa was given visitation rights to see the children. It is interesting that in another acount, grandpa's other two children left at home from his first marriage were also placed outside the home..?

Now, why do I think there are some [or at least one] flies in the ointment? In grandpa's obituary he is described as a good church member and bore his burdens and illness with patience and christian fortitude, and there was a 'very large audience' for his funeral. Futhermore, sometime after he had married his second wife Hester, he gave his younger son Wm.Harvey McLain II to a German couple [who raised young Wiliam for six years; or perhaps until Hester was out of the picture?] because his wife Hester was so abusive to him. Most family genealogies that I've read don't even mention this second wife, but do however mention the mistreatment of young William.

Do you see the flies yet? A second wife, who ran a very strange household in her first marriage, with her husbands first wife and child mysteriously appearing on a census as members of their house in that marriage; and then petitioning for a divorce from grandpa in her second marriage and mistreating his youngest son by grandpa's first marriage .....
MOre later perhaps