• September 23, 1985
• Vol. 23
• No. 13

A Divorced Dad at 14, Hal Warden Ponders a Teen Romance Gone Awry

Hal Warden has problems shared by none of his 10th-grade classmates at Greenbrier (Tenn.) High School. At 14, he is already a divorce, and now he has lost a bitter custody battle with his ex-wife, Wendy Chappell, 17, for their 16-month-old daughter, Heather. A Juvenile Court judge has ordered him to pay $30 a week in child support, though state laws require him to attend school. Says Hal, who plans to appeal: "There's just no justice in this world."

The Hal & Wendy story began lyrically enough two years ago. The two met in Chugiak, Alaska, where Wendy's dad is a contractor and where Hal's folks had moved to find work. He was then 12, she, 15. They became playmates, and more. After Hal's family returned to Tennessee, Wendy called to tell him she was pregnant. Hal's father, Herbert, remembers waking up in the middle of the night to hear his son crying: "He said, 'Daddy, I've got an extreme bad problem.' "

Although Hal sent Wendy money for an abortion, she later told the court that she had waited until it was too late for that. Instead she went to Tennessee, where she and Hal were duly wed. "You've never seen two people more in love," recalls Warden Sr.

The honeymoon turned sour just two weeks later, when Wendy's mother, Ellen Chappell, flew to Tennessee to charge Hal's father with kidnapping her daughter. Wendy mollified her mother for the moment, only to complain of homesickness the next month. When she fled back to Alaska, Hal filed for divorce. But in another month Wendy was again in Tennessee, later saying she was afraid she would lose custody of her as yet unborn baby if she did not return.

Heather arrived soon afterward. When the producers of TV's Hour Magazine heard about them, they flew the couple to Hollywood to tell their story of young love and parenthood. That junket was followed by a trip to Japan, courtesy of the Tokyo Broadcasting System. "I don't believe in getting married at my age," Hal said earnestly. "But when you do make a mistake, [you should] be man enough to face it."

All semblance of wedded bliss ended last Christmastime, when the couple took their baby to visit Wendy's family in Chugiak. Once they were there, Hal says, his mother-in-law threw him out and talked Wendy into staying. In the courts he was awarded a divorce on grounds of cruel and inhuman treatment but lost the custody fight, winning only biannual visitation rights with Heather. Has all this left him embittered about early marriage? "To tell the truth," he says, "I liked my married life more than my single life because I always had Wendy and the baby to talk to." Yes, he admits, he would consider a reconciliation. Wendy's response is briefer. Says she: "No comment."