Blind Tom Wiggins - Custody Battle

Custody Battle

In 1882, John Bethune married his landlady, Eliza Stutzbach, who had demonstrated a knack for mollifying Tom's sometimes volatile temperament. However, shortly after their marriage, John Bethune embarked on an extended tour of the U.S. with Tom, in effect abandoning Eliza. When Bethune returned home eight months later, his wife filed for divorce. The couple split up—John took Tom—but a bitter legal squabble ensued, with Eliza hounding John for financial support, a claim that the courts usually adjudicated in John's favor. After John Bethune died in a railway accident in 1884, Tom was returned—over Eliza's objections—to the care of General Bethune (now living in Virginia). Eliza sued General Bethune for ownership, with Tom's elderly mother Charity enjoined by Eliza's attorney as a party in the plaintiff's suit. After a protracted custody battle in several courts, in August 1887 Tom was awarded to Eliza, who moved Tom back to New York. Charity accompanied them with the understanding that she would benefit financially from Tom's earnings. However, after it became apparent that Eliza did not intend to honor any financial obligations to Charity, Tom's mother returned to Georgia.

Tom continued performing and touring for a number of years under the management of Eliza and her attorney (and later husband) Albrecht Lerche. Tom was on tour in western Pennsylvania in May 1889 on the day of the Johnstown Flood, and rumor spread that he was among the casualties. Despite his continued appearances on the U.S. concert circuit, the rumor persisted for years, with some observers expressing skepticism that the Blind Tom who appeared in concert after 1889 was the "real Blind Tom."

In this phase of his career, Tom usually introduced himself onstage in the third person, imitating the pronouncements of his various managers from years past. He talked about his mental state with a characteristic lack of self-awareness. He had been diagnosed as non compos mentis by a doctor, and in his foggy netherworld the phrase was a matter of personal pride. Willa Cather described the poignance of one such concert: "It was a strange sight to see him walk out on stage with his own lips—another man's words—introduce himself and talk quietly about his own idiocy. There was insanity, a grotesque horribleness about it that was interestingly unpleasant. One laughs at the man's queer actions, and yet, after all, the sight is not laughable. It brings us too near to the things that we sane people do not like to think of."

After being dogged by incessant legal challenges to her custodianship of Tom, Eliza took Tom off the concert circuit around 1893.