Messer

Plaintiff in this divorce action appeals from orders made upon her application for custody of the parties’ minor daughter. When the interlocutory decree of divorce was entered in October of 1961, the girl was about three and one-half years old; nevertheless, the court awarded custody to the father because the mother had quite recently been under commitment to a state hospital for the mentally ill. The interlocutory decree reserved the question of custody for redetermination after the lapse of one year in the expectation that an award of custody to the mother might at that time be appropriate.

Appellant has repeatedly applied to the court for a change of custody. Evidence has been taken at several hearings, and court investigators have frequently interviewed the parties and their friends and neighbors, reporting in considerable detail social and psychological factors which appeared to point one way or the other on the question of custody. By the summer of 1965, the child’s custody was still with respondent but, pursuant to stipulation, an order had been made allowing appellant to have the child with her for five weeks each summer. At the end of the 1965 visit, the mother once…