HIGH POINT CONFIDENTIAL: The brazen bigamist -- High Point woman had two husbands ... in the same house!

Oct. 22—HIGH POINT — It was the bigamy case heard 'round the world — or at least heard 'round the country.

Oh sure, High Point has had plenty of other bigamy cases through the years.

We've written about a 1931 case, for example, when the 17-year-old daughter of a High Point College instructor fell for a smooth-talking con man — already married and a father, as well — who seduced her into a South Carolina elopement. Her daddy hired a detective to track the newlyweds down and help get his gullible girl out of the bigamous marriage.

In 1929, The High Point Enterprise reported on a traveling carnival musician who was arrested here for being "married so many times he can't remember the exact number." He was still married to all of them — illegally, of course — except the one who had died. He had a 17-year-old girl with him when the carnival came to High Point, and yes, they were planning to get married until the law intervened.

But this particular bigamy case tops them all, because the bigamist — in this case, a woman — had two husbands living in the same house, along with four children. Oh, and she somehow managed to convince the second hubby that the first hubby was not actually her hubby, but her brother, and that the children were his.

If it all sounds a bit convoluted and unbelievable, just wait'll you read the details.

The year was 1951, and the main villain — er, villainess — in this sordid affair was a 31-year-old auburn-haired woman named Magdalene Adams. She was married to Lumford Adams, 35, and they lived in High Point with their four children. We don't know much about their marriage except that, for whatever reason, Magdalene was eager to bring a second husband into the household.

Sometime in late 1948 or early 1949, she became engaged to an unidentified man in Thomasville. Fortunately for him, though, his mother smelled a rat, and when she went to visit the suspicious bride-to-be, she became convinced that Magdalene — or "Mary," as she pretended to be named — was up to no good. She talked her son out of the marriage.

Hugh F. Wilson, Magdalene's next target, wasn't so lucky.

Magdalene apparently went to Fort Bragg and found Wilson, a 29-year-old World War II veteran who had served as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division. They married in September 1949, and Wilson moved to High Point and joined his bride's unusual household. The newlyweds, Hugh and "Mary," lived on one side of the house, and on the other side were Magdalene's first husband and their four children, ages 7 to 15. She told her new husband that Lumford was actually her brother, and the children belonged to him; their mother, Lumford's wife, had died while giving birth to the youngest child, Magdalene claimed.

To bolster the scam, Magdalene and Lumford had even told their neighbors they were brother and sister when they moved into their house on Howell Street. The children were taught to call Magdalene "Mary," and they were punished if they slipped up and called her "Mother," according to The Enterprise.

This dysfunctional arrangement lasted more than two years without Hugh ever discovering the murky waters he was treading.

The jig was up in October 1951, when Hugh demanded Lumford contribute an extra $5 a month toward the household grocery bill. After all, Hugh reasoned, those four kids were his. That's when Lumford finally snapped — he went to the police and told them, "My wife is living with another man."

When police investigated, Magdalene adamantly denied Lumford's claim. Even when her 15-year-old son told police she was his mother, she balked and called him "as big a liar as your father."

Police charged Magdalene with bigamy, and they charged Lumford with aiding and abetting bigamy. When a judge sentenced Magdalene to 2 1/2 to four years in prison, she fainted in the courtroom. Meanwhile, Lumford received one to two years.

The story went viral, with newspapers across the country publishing articles and even photos of Magdalene.

Meanwhile, poor Hugh was devastated. As inconceivable as it seems that he could be so oblivious to the scam, the investigating police officer testified that Hugh "had no inkling of what was going on."

You'll be glad to know that after divorcing his bigamist wife almost immediately, Hugh returned to his native Missouri and found true love, marrying a woman who would be his wife for 60 years, until her death in 2012. He died four years later.

And what was his wife's name?

Well, here's some irony for you — her name was Mary.

jtomlin@hpenews.com — 336-888-3579