I found reports of that, but not a lot of other information. He was 82 at the time. I'm not finding much, but this comment on a news board.
I hate domestic violence, and I rail against it all the time, as you should know. But I also don't care for peasants with pitchforks, who hear news blurbs and label the world and everyone in it as the evil devil.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/entertai...-on-mash-dies/
Quote:
Posted by: XXXXXXXX | December 8, 2011, 12:24 am 12:24 am
Comment to the people who bring up Harry Morgan’s domestic violence case: he was 82 at the time. I don’t know if he had any problems with dementia or Alzheimer’s or issues with depression, all of which are possibilities in a man his age. He was married for 45 years to his first wife, who passed away in 1985; he remained married to his second wife at the time of his death. To me this certainly argues that whatever the situation was at the time of the event, it was resolved in a way that kept him and his wife together. It is worth noting that the charges were dropped when he completed a counseling program, and there were no other occasions involving violence in the relationship.
Having cared for an elderly parent, and observed the elderly parents of my friends and relatives, I have to say that it isn’t that unusual for changes in personality to take place in someone as old as Harry Morgan was. Excluding outright dementia and Alzheimer’s, there are a lot of elderly people who develop depression and experience anger and frustration at the onset of aging-related problems: memory issues, physical disabilities, sometimes pain from physical problems like arthritis. This can really be a problem, especially where the person who is experiencing the problems wants to deny that they exist or are affecting him/her.
I think that it’s very unfair to brand Harry Morgan as a “wife-beater” on the basis of a single incident that happened when he was 82 years old, especially without knowing any details of the situation. And especially when he and his wife remained married 15 years later.
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