25. The Reverend’s “Second Wife”
William Pettit, he made a lucrative conquest soon after he blew into town. Within a year of his arrival in Shawnee Mound, the Reverend and Elma Whitehead had become lovers. The adulterous affair was an open secret. The duo, oblivious to or reckless of local opinion, openly traveled together, unaccompanied, all over the region, before they returned late at night. They were also observed mooning over each other, and before long, many locals had begun to refer to Elma as Reverend Pettit’s “second wife”.
Things got even steamier between William Pettit and Elma Whitehead when Hattie Pettit left town in June of 1889, for a month-long visit to an old friend in South Bend. With his wife away, the Reverend moved into the Meharry residence, into a room across the hall from Elma’s. The maid, whom William Pettit had hounded before he went after her mistress, heard them getting it on at night. Others observed that the duo acted intimately when they thought they were alone together. It was in that period that they reportedly hatched the plot to end Pettit’s wife.