Robbie McBride (pictured above at left) and her sister Beth Ward (top right) talk about life on their family’s divorce ranch in Reno, Nevada.
Transcript
Beth Ward (BW) and Robbie McBride (RM)
BW: Most of the guests came from New York, New Jersey.
RM: At the end of their six weeks, Mother would go to court with them and testify that they’d been a resident at the ranch and she had seen them every day.
BW: And many of them said, ”Well, you can just testify that I was here the last two weeks” and offered her all kinds of money. But she’d say, ”Oh no. Oh no.”
RM: Mother liked to have things nice and smooth and no fussing and fuming.
BW: Had one guest who cried for six weeks. Any time a man would walk by, oh, it reminded her of Joe. And we finally saw Joe and I don’t know where the tears came from. ’Cause he was no prized package, I can tell you that. But as whole most of the people who came there, they wanted a divorce so there wasn’t an unhappy time for them. They just thought it was great that there was someplace they can come to get one.
RM: An awful lot of them had plans for after their six weeks.
BW: When they’d check in, they’d say ”my cousin will be with us.” They had somebody in the other room waiting to walk down the aisle with. And six weeks later of course they were married.
RM: [laughs] Listening to stories from the guests I think we probably thought many times, ”I sure won’t make that mistake!” [both laugh]
BW: Robbie had a good marriage with her husband. And I’ve been married and divorced and then remarried. The man I remarried–his wife had been there for a divorce. He came over and asked me out for dinner. Next thing I knew I was married, so it was the greatest move that I think we ever made.