Adelaide Branch

Summary of the Case: In December 1913, a sensational scandal broke in Monticello, Sullivan County, New York, following the sudden death of former county prosecutor and lawyer Melvin H. Couch. Upon Couch's death from a ruptured aorta in his law office, authorities discovered that Adelaide Mary Branch (1873–1948), an educated former teacher and traveling book agent, had been living secretly for three years (1910–1913) in a small partitioned room off his office. Branch referred to herself as his "heart wife," tending to his declining health in near-total isolation.