Ezra Merkley & Alice Hacking

Ezra Merkley was an older brother to Asher.

Ezra married Alice Hacking (of Vernal) on 15 Nov 1913 in Vernal, Uintah, Utah.

Thus, she became Alice Hacking Merkley.

Photo from the personal albums of David Ahrnsbrak
Cropped from a larger photo

Marriage license:

SOURCE: familysearch.org

Erza and Alice were both reported to have independent spirits about them (colorful in one way or another) so it came as little surprise to find this article in the local newspaper a year after they married:

SOURCE: Vernal Express 1914, Dec 11, p.3

Article transcribed:

MERKLEY DIVORCE SUIT IS DISMISSED

Plaintiff and Defendant to Pay Costs....(highlight of following article omitted)...

The divorce suit of Alice Merkley vs. Ezra Merkley was dismissed by Judge Morgan in the district court.  Plaintiff and defendant are both required to pay their own costs.  This case was tried at the last term of the district court, since which time the court had the matter under consideration.

The math relating to their marriage date and the birth of their first child in March 1914 suggests a possible shotgun wedding- no doubt a reason for newlywed strife this early in the game.

Later news articles and family history indicate that they stayed married and had three children until Ezra's untimely death in 1918 of the Spanish flu.  Alice then remarried a man by the name of Wilson Murray and raised all of her previous Merkley children under her new husband's name.  More on that later...