"Forever at an End"

Grey-haired, bespectacled Washoe County District Court Judge Grant L. Bowen, 63, sat in his chambers and peered out the window into Reno's Virginia Street, hoping to catch a glimpse of the arriving plaintiff. "This is a great break for Reno," he said to New York Daily News Correspondent Bill Berry. "It may mean Alabama-bound divorce seekers will come here again."

The divorce seeker that morning was Mrs. Mary Todhunter Clark Rockefeller, 54, who, after putting in the required six weeks of residence in Nevada, was ready to dissolve her marriage to New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller, 53--at his request.

At 8:48 a.m., William K. Woodburn, Mrs. Rockefeller's lawyer, walked into the county clerk's office and filed Case No. 197,412. It was a two-page complaint charging that Mrs. Rockefeller had been treated "with extreme cruelty, entirely mental in character, which caused the plaintiff great unhappiness and injured her general health." He also asked that "all persons be excluded from the court," as permitted by Nevada law.

Two minutes later Kenneth P. Dillon, Nelson Rockefeller's lawyer, filed the Governor's reply, which he had sworn to under oath before a New York notary four weeks ago. It said, with utmost simplicity: "The defendant denies each and every, all and singular, allegations."

At 9 o'clock, wearing a wool suit, a bluish tweed overcoat and a beanie hat, Mrs. Rockefeller walked through a rear entrance into the courthouse with her sons Rodman, 29, and Steven, 25. Mrs. Rockefeller showed some strain as she walked past the popping flashbulbs. Her sons left her for an anteroom, and she walked into the courtroom. It is a large chamber with azure walls and gilded frieze. Except for Judge Bowen, the two lawyers, and three court attendants, she was alone.

"When you arrived," her lawyer asked, "was it your intention to live here indefinitely and make Nevada your home?"

"Yes."

"Has that intention abided with you until the present day?"

"Yes."

"Is it still your present intention?"

"Yes."

These are standard questions in any Nevada divorce. Allegation and denial were read; there was some conversation about the property settlement. Then Judge Bowen said: "This marriage is forever declared at an end." It was the 694th divorce granted in Reno this year.

At 9:23, the new divorcee emerged from the courtroom, holding tightly to her sons' arms. She made a wrong turn, which took her to the Marriage Bureau (which is, indeed, the next stop for many Reno divorcees). Leaving by the rear door, she stepped into her lawyer's car and was whisked off to the airport for the short hop to San Francisco. There she and her sons waited for 3 1/2 hours. Then Mary Rockefeller boarded a plane for her native Philadelphia--where she and Nelson Rockefeller had been married 31 years, eight months and 19 days before.

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