Watters v. Watters

This is a habeas corpus proceeding upon the petition of the paternal grandmother of one-year-old Howard Eugene Watters seeking to deprive the child's mother of his custody on the ground she is an unfit and improper person to retain such custody. The child's father was killed in action while in the Army in Korea when the child was about six months old. Doris Jean Watters was living with her soldier husband, Cecil Watters, in the state of Washington in the summer of 1950. When he embarked for Korea, Doris Jean returned to Mahaska County with her infant son, Howard Eugene, where she has lived ever since in the home of her adoptive parents, Mr. and Mrs. C.E. Hartman, in a small village named Evans located about four miles west of Oskaloosa.