SELFISH INTENTIONS - K-REx - Kansas State University

using her capital (plus a $70 contribution that Downing had obtained from his father), she
opened a butcher shop in Clay Center. For a year – that is, both before and after their December
1896 wedding – Downing “slaughtered the cattle, carried the carcasses, cut the beef, bought the
beeves and kept shop in order while plaintiff took charge at the close of each day of cash
proceeds of the business and financed the venture generally.” 147 In his countersuit, Downing
also revealed a rather bizarre arrangement, given that they were officially husband and wife:
Susanna paid him $25 per month for his efforts in the butcher shop and provided “board and
lodging.” When the butcher shop closed, Downing then went back to work on the farm, in
order, he said, “to improve the plaintiff’s property.” 148
Indeed, perhaps the most striking aspect of Downing’s countersuit was his consciousness
of the vast differences in the property owned by his wife versus his own economic standing. He
noted, for example, that he had taken a job working as a section hand for the Rock Island
Railroad in 1898, and had contributed all of his wages from this period of time, $154, to the
family treasury. He was concerned that his financial contributions had allowed his wife to
purchase hogs, valued at $60, that she now owned. He complained that his wife had kept several
pieces of furniture that he acquired before the marriage that he valued at $50. In contrast to his
own poor standing, Downing noted that his wife owned the property where the family resided,
valued at $1500, and also possessed a mortgage on three houses in Broughton valued at $3000,
as well as horses, cows, farm implements, and other personal property valued at $500. All that
he had was, literally, the clothes on his back: he had been “correct in his habits, economical in
expenditures and zealous in his efforts to promote the financial interests of said plaintiff and now
147 Ibid.
148 Ibid.
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