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THE WASHINGTON TIMES Washington, D.C., U.S.A. 22 December 1922 (page 2)
TRIAL MARRIAGE BRIDE TELLS OF WOES.
Beaten Black and Blue on Third Evening, Says Mrs. Ryerson.
TRIAL BRIDE LASTED ONLY 29 DAYS.
Mazie Mitchell Ryerson, artists’ model and estranged wife of Albert W. Ryerson, wealthy Detroit man and local head of the mysterious O.T.O. love cult, who tells some interesting sidelights on the organization. She says her husband changed her from an unsophisticated girl into a woman with knowledge of much that is evil, mysterious and horrible. Turbaned orientals and women of the underworld figure in her story. She is now suing Ryerson for divorce.
DETROIT, Mich., Dec. 22.—I cannot fully describe the first three days of my marriage. It is better for me to cast a veil over the things that Ryerson said and did. Of course, I did not love him. How could I? But if there had been any love in my heart for my aged husband, he would have killed it the first days of our marriage. I lived through unspeakable torture of mind and body. I learned things that were a terrible revelation of human nature, that there are men who stoop to acts the beasts would scorn.
I could not endure it. Better to beg my bread on the street than to live another day with Ryerson, I decided in my own mind.
The third evening was a time of torture. I can never forget it.
Beaten Black and Blue.
Ryerson became angry with me over some trivial matter. I believe I was reading a letter from a girl friend when he demanded that I drop it and talk to him. Without thinking of arousing his anger, I refused. Then he dragged me out of my chair and commenced to whip me. He beat me until I was black and blue, and almost fainting. I screamed and screamed but it made no difference. He seemed to take a fiendish delight in my screams. Finally, I broke away from him and ran from the house. I didn’t bother about where I was going. I ran under the porch, just like a cowering, whipped dog, and lay there shivering all night. I was heart broken. To think that a husband of but three days could thus treat his bride. I determined to run away to go back to my artist friends and make my own living as a model again. But I had no money, nothing but the clothes on my back. Finally, I sobbed myself to sleep and there Ryerson found me in the morning.
Of course, he was humble, repentant, loving husband. He begged me to forgive him, to overlook his passion. Promising never again to lay a violent hand on me, he vowed he would be good and kind, and make me happy.
So believing, again I stayed.
Kind for a Time.
For a day or so he was kid to me and tried to make amends for what he had done. But he didn’t seem to be able to control himself. The little trifles that married people must put up with aroused every feeling in him. He would storm at me, rave, and then beat me.
Sometimes he would awake in the middle of the night and begin beating me because of some fancied slight. Once he whipped me so hard and long that I lost consciousness. The marks are yet on my body—big welts on my back and limbs.
Gradually intimations of mysterious doings began to come to me. At first I could not believe them possible. Then one night Ryerson produced a big book of clippings and told me of the O.T.O. These clippings related to the discovery of the O.T.O. cult in Detroit last year and Ryerson’s connection as head of it. Most of the stories were false, he said. I cannot repeat what he told me about the O.T.O., but perhaps I shall relate some of them when my divorce case comes to trial. He never tried to make me a member of the cult, but I believe he intended to do so. He may have thought that by whipping and abusing me he could break my spirit and mould me to his will, but he couldn’t. I was too obstinate.
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