Dolly Adams Marries Man She Accuses of Theft in Harlem

“Emma Viola Street, a variety actress known as Dolly Adams, and Frederick Hillmeyer, the son of a well-to-do hotel proprietor in Far Rockaway, were married in the Harlem prison yesterday by the Reverend R.T. Wegener of the German Baptist Church……One Hundred and Eighteenth Street and Second Avenue, after Magistrate Simms had refused to perform the ceremony. Hillmeyer was in the Harlem Police Court to answer to a charge of larceny preferred against him by the woman, who alleged that he had stolen $140 worth of jewelry and $30 in cash from her flat at 1626 Park Avenue.

The man and woman were to have been married on Sunday, September 12, but, according to the bride’s story, Hillmeyer committed the act with which he is charged on the Friday previous, and escaped to Albany. Thinking he would return, she went on with her preparations for the wedding, but at the appointed time the young man did not appear. She then notified the police, and Saturday Hillmeyer was arrested as he stepped off the Albany boat.

In court yesterday, the prisoner, who is only twenty-four years old, was held in $1,000 bail, and his wife, four years his senior, broke down and fell in an epileptic fit. She then requested to be allowed to withdraw her complaint but the Magistrate said he could not give the desired permission. He also refused to marry the couple on the ground that the marriage could not turn out happily. The bride went to the District Attorney’s office to plead for her husband.”

— New York Times. September 21. 1897

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