He had made his way rapidly to popularity in literature, but in seven years time his domestic happiness had come to ruin. The following news story was printed in the Oregonian on September 10, 1914:
Word was received in Portland yesterday telling of the arrest at New York of John Fleming Wilson, writer of sea stories and moving picture scenarios, who formerly lived in Portland, on a charge of being about to leave the state before answering his wife's suit for divorce and alimony. Not procuring $750 in bail, as ordered by the court, he was sent to the Ludlow Street jail. . . . Alleging that her husband's income is $12,000 a year, Mrs. Wilson asks that she be allowed $50 a week by the author.
There may have been some sort of reconciliation after this incident, for an announcement that the divorce had been granted, and referring back to the troublous New York days of 1914, was printed in the Oregonian of February 7, 1920:
Toledo, Or., Feb. 7.—A degree of divorce was granted to Mrs. Lulu E. Wilson from John Fleming Wilson, Portland author and playwright, in circuit court here this week. Mr. and Mrs. Wilson were married at Portland in 1907 and soon after came to Newport to live. Mrs. Wilson alleged that Wilson drank heavily. . . . In 1914, while residing in New York City, she said he assaulted her upon the street. Mrs. Wilson was granted $130 per month permanent alimony and $200 attorney fees.
From 1917 to 1919 he served with the Canadian forces in France, where he was wounded several times. Returning from the War, he went to Los Angeles to regain his health, and later did scenario writing in that city. At Venice, a beach suburb, he died from burns on March 4, 1922. While shaving, a heavy dressing gown caught fire from a gas heater, causing his death a few hours later. He left an estate of $90,-
