He made it to the altar 29 times - but not even one of those wives is stepping forward to claim his corpse.
Glynn "Scotty" Wolfe died from heart disease at a nursing home June 10. He had held the Guinness Book of World Records title as the most-married man for more than 35 years. He was 88 years old, father of 19 children and, as of 1989, had 40 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren.Now, Wolfe's body lies unclaimed at the county morgue, spokesman Tom Dewhirst said. Unless someone steps forward this week, he will be cremated and his ashes will be emptied into a common grave, on top of countless John and Jane Does.
"I really cared for that man," said his widow, Linda Essex-Wolfe. "He was a warm, kind, gentle, one-of-a-kind man."
But Essex-Wolfe, calling collect from a pay phone outside a grocery store in her hometown of Anderson, Ind., said she can't afford to bury the man she called "the love of my life." Wolfe was her 23rd husband.
"I wish I could," she said, "but I don't have the money. That's what's really hurting me."
Not even a marker will note the final resting place of a man who spent his life seeking the limelight.
Wolfe, a Bible-thumping minister who preached out of a trailer, was a relentless seeker of publicity. Two tattered albums - filled with photos from his appearances on talk shows, clippings about his exploits and each of his 29 marriage licenses - sit unclaimed at the nursing home.
Wolfe last made headlines in June when he married his current wife, who herself holds the record as the world's most-married woman.
Essex-Wolfe was introduced to Wolfe in Blythe, his hometown, arranged by the National Enquirer in 1989. At the time, Wolfe was married to a 17-year-old girl from the Philippines, Daisy Wolfe.
"As soon as I saw him, I knew I cared for him," Essex-Wolfe said. "He was a charmer. He married a lot of beautiful women, a lot of young women."
Wolfe took brides as young as 14, divorcing them before they hit their 20th birthday. Commenting on his teen brides, Wolfe once said he liked to "marry them young and train them the way you want."
He married more mature brides near the end of his life, choosing a 70-year-old nurse from Pasadena in 1995 before divorcing her five months later to wed Essex-Wolfe, 56.
"I didn't want to get married again," Essex-Wolfe said, "I wanted to date around, to be my own boss. But after all his calls and letters, I went ahead and gave in."
Dist. by Scripps Howard News Service.