Unknown Gender History: Parental Alienation in 1949: The Lynch / Teitelbaum Case

PHOTO CAPTION: WEEP AT HEARING—Mrs. Marianne Lynch Teitelbaum (left) weeps with her daughter, Nancy, 12, during recess in New York in court action to prevent Mrs. Teitelbaum’s extradition to California. The mother is wanted in California on a charge of “child stealing” in connection with the taking of her four children by a former marriage from California last year. Nancy is one of the four children. (AP Wirephoto) [“Weep at Hearing,” syndicated (AP), Sunday Bulletin (Racine, Wi.), Mar. 13, 1949, p. 1]

FULL TEXT: A court battle between two California parents for the custody of their four children was decided yesterday by Referee Edwin L. Garvin in Supreme Court in favor of Zoel N. Lynch of Coalinga, Calif., the father, despite the children’s testimony against him.

Mr. Lynch was granted custody of the children by a Nevada divorce decree two years ago. Recently his former wife, Mrs. Marianne Lynch Teitelbaum, and her mother, Mrs. Kathleen King, brought the children East by plane on a shopping tour. The father followed and started suit.

“I am convinced the children have made statements about their father which are without basis in fact,” Referee Garvin said, “in the hope that they may enjoy a life free from parental discipline, with an abundance of movies, candy, and the indulgences which appeal to small fry.”

He declared that Mrs. Teitelbaum, in an effort to prove her former husband’s unfitness to care for the children “Went to great lengths that bordered on the incredible. I am of the opinion that she influenced all the children to tell this story,” he said.

One of the charges made against Mr. Lynch was that he had awakened his eldest son every midnight to administer a beating.

[“Father Wins Custody of Four Children,” New York Times (N. Y.), Mar. 10, 1949, p. 40]

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