Prewitt

Plaintiff and appellant, on July 1, 1946, filed his complaint in Orange County for divorce against defendant and respondent. It was uncontested and the court awarded custody of the two children, then aged 5 and 2 years, to the plaintiff father. A similar order was entered in the final decree on July 19, 1948. The plaintiff father and the two children moved to Concord, California, in March, 1949, and thereafter remained there. Defendant mother remarried and on June 8, 1953, applied in Orange County, where she resided, for a modification of the child custody order, and filed supporting affidavits to her claim that conditions had materially changed; that she did not have private counsel’s advice at the time of the divorce proceedings; that she did not have any property or income then to support the children; that plaintiff was not married, worked daytimes, and could not properly care for the children; and that she desired their custody with reasonable right of visitation by the father.

At the hearing on the order to show cause plaintiff appeared with counsel and moved to transfer venue and jurisdiction from the Orange County court to the county of Contra Costa, upon the ground of…