Mess in His Wake: How One Ancestor's Scandal Led to Three Generations of Love

Have you ever discovered a family story so messy, so filled with betrayal and heartbreak, that you wondered if you should just close that particular chapter and pretend it never happened? What if I told you that those are often the very stories that hold the most power to heal—not just for you, but for the generations that come after you?

That's exactly what I discovered when I started digging into the story of my great-great-grandfather, Park Werter Cowan. Fair warning: this isn't your typical heartwarming family history tale. This is the story of a man who left a trail of abandoned wives, bigamy charges, and newspaper headlines across the Midwest, down to Arkansas, and out to California. But it's also the story of how confronting that mess led to something beautiful. I am now surrounded by a legacy of love and faithfulness that shaped my own understanding of what it means to choose your family every single day.

The Scoundrel's Trail

When I first heard family stories about Park Cowan, he was always referred to as "the scoundrel," something said with a mixture of shame and dark humor that families reserve for their most notorious relatives. But I had no idea just how extensive his trail of damage really was until I started searching through historical newspapers and court records.

The headlines tell a story that would make even today's gossip columns blush. In January 1902, newspapers across the Midwest blazed with the scandal: "BIGAMY CHARGES FILED AGAINST PARK COWAN." What started as a young woman's elopement announcement became a legal nightmare when lawyers discovered Park was still married to his first wife, my great-great-grandmother Carrie Inman.

But this wasn't just a simple case of a man who left his family. Park's story reveals a pattern of behavior that rippled through three generations, leaving behind a wake of abandoned wives, confused children. Carrie had to figure out how to survive in 1901 as a suddenly single mother of two teenage boys.

The most heartbreaking part? The pattern repeated. Park and Carrie's eldest son, Robert, affected by his father's abandonment, then did the exact same thing to his own family. Robert abandoned his wife and four daughters, leaving them destitute while he headed to California, apparently to reconnect with the father who had destroyed his childhood. Once again, it was Carrie who stepped in, taking her daughter-in-law and granddaughters home to New Orleans, where she would raise yet another generation abandoned by the men who should have protected them.

I tell the full story of how Carrie rescued Robert's family and ended up in New Orleans in Episode 1. It’s a powerful example of how one woman's extraordinary strength can hold a family together when everything else falls apart. But it also shows how abandonment can become a generational pattern, passed down like a terrible inheritance from father to son.

The Whole Story

If you haven't already heard the full story of Park Cowan and the mess he left behind, take a moment to listen in:

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🎧 Listen to the full episode to discover:

• How old newspapers revealed family secrets that had been hidden for over a century
• The shocking pattern of marriages, divorces, and abandonments that spanned nearly 50 years
• Why Park's own sons followed him to California despite everything he'd done to their mother
• The moment my grandmother refused to ever see Park again (and what he did that crossed the final line)
• How one man's terrible choices became the catalyst for three generations of faithful love

The Power of One Story

Here's what struck me most about researching Park's story: every messy choice he made created an opportunity for someone else to choose differently. When he abandoned Carrie, she chose resilience. When he left his printing business in shambles, she chose to build a skill that would sustain her family. When his pattern of abandonment threatened to repeat in the next generation, my great-grandfather Frederick chose faithfulness.

"The mess of that family had given him an example of what not to do, and... Frederick had loved his wife and my grandfather loved his wife and was faithful to her and was romantic with her to the day he died."

Sometimes the most powerful family stories aren't about the heroes in our trees. They’re about the villains who showed us exactly what we didn't want to become.

Your Story

Think about the difficult stories in your own family history. The relatives who made choices that caused pain, the patterns that seem to repeat through generations, the scandals whispered about but never fully understood. What if those stories hold the key to understanding not just where you came from, but where you're going?

I used to think family history was about celebrating our ancestors' achievements. Now I know it's about understanding the full scope of human choice - both the beautiful and the broken - and recognizing our power to write a different ending.

Story Seeds 🌱

Plant these conversation starters and watch your family stories grow.

1. For Parents/Grandparents: "What family stories were you told as warnings or examples of what not to do or how not to behave?"
2. For Siblings/Cousins: "Have you ever noticed patterns in our family that you consciously decided to break or change in your own life?"
3. For Older Relatives: "Which ancestors do you think had the hardest lives, and how do you think they managed to keep going?"
4. For Anyone: "What family story initially embarrassed you but later taught you something valuable about resilience or character?"
   

Story Sparks 🔑

Unlock your family's hidden stories with these research techniques.

1. Search Newspapers.com for scandal. Don't just look for birth announcements and obituaries. Search for divorce proceedings, court cases, and business failures. Use search terms like "divorce," "abandoned," or "charges filed."
2. Follow the legal paper trail. Court records often reveal family dynamics that never made it into traditional genealogy sources. Check county courthouse records for divorce proceedings, custody battles, and probate disputes. These documents often contain personal details and family tensions.
3. Map the family's movement patterns. When someone appears in multiple cities across several years, there's usually a story behind those moves. Use city directories and census records to track where they lived, when they moved, and who they lived with. Patterns often reveal family relationships or disruptions.
4. Look for the women's stories. When researching difficult male ancestors, pay special attention to what happened to the women and children they left behind. Search for remarriages, name changes, and evidence of how these women survived and thrived despite abandonment.
   

 Every family tree has both heroes and villains, saints and scoundrels. The magic happens when we stop hiding from the messy stories and start learning from them. Park Cowan's legacy isn't just the pain he caused. It's the three generations of faithful love that followed, each generation choosing to break the pattern and write a different story.

What patterns are you choosing to break? What stories are you writing for the generations that will come after you?

Ready to discover stories that shaped your family? Subscribe to Stories That Live In Us wherever you get your podcasts. And if this episode resonated with you, please leave us a rating and review—it helps other family story seekers find us and reminds us all that even our messiest family stories have the power to heal.

© 2025 Crista Cowan