Estate / Personal · 1890s–1930s

Grace Snell — Multiple Marriages & Estate Claims

Grace ran away with the coachman at 16. She married eight times. The press eventually called her “The Most Married Woman in the World.” Her full married name: Mrs. Grace Snell-Coffin-Coffin-Walker-Coffin-Layman-Love-Love.

Grace Snell was sixteen years old when she ran away from the family home on Washington Boulevard and eloped with the family’s coachman. It was a scandal that the Chicago press covered with relish, and it was only the beginning of a life that would generate headlines for the next four decades.

Grace married eight times in total. Her husbands included multiple men named Coffin — she married one, divorced him, married another Coffin, divorced him, and in at least one account married the first Coffin again. She also married men named Walker, Layman, and Love — the last name appearing twice in her accumulated surname. By the time the press took full stock of her matrimonial history, her complete married name had become a kind of running joke: Mrs. Grace Snell-Coffin-Coffin-Walker-Coffin-Layman-Love-Love.

Each marriage brought its own legal complications. Property claims, divorce settlements, and questions about what portion of the Snell estate Grace controlled at any given time created a recurring tangle of litigation. Her share of the inheritance was subject to the claims of various husbands and their creditors over the years.

"Mrs. Grace Snell-Coffin-Coffin-Walker-Coffin-Layman-Love-Love."

Grace outlived most of the estate battles and most of her husbands. Unlike her brother Albert, she did not end up destitute. But her life was a sustained demonstration of how thoroughly the Snell family had scattered after the patriarch’s death — each member following their own chaotic trajectory, none of them preserving what their father had built.