Old photos of couples married 50 years.

 

This page will be part of the MARRIAGES book due out soon. All of the pictures are from old newspapers and all these couples are mentioned in the book.

New Book Coming Soon.

This is the cover for my next book. What's neat about it is that the couple on the cover are celebrating their 60th anniversary—the year was 1910—and they are Galen's great grandparents. They almost made it to 75 years.

This was another fun book for me to compile. As always, I love the strange and funny stories but I also enjoyed the historical stories of newlywed couples who came here from other countries or loaded up a wagon and headed west. Like this one:

Papers full of domestic scandals. Statisticians pouring forth awful figures about the increase of divorce. Theorists gloomily announcing the downfall of the American home. Children with from two to four sets of parents. Plenty of such things. But let’s tell a story that’s different.

Fifty years ago a young fellow named Eph Hastings married a comely girl in the little town of Keokuk, Iowa. Of a $500,000 pearl necklace, tapestries, silverware, automobiles, banknotes and things like that they hadn’t much but they had courage and each other’s hearts, and you may be sure that there’s not much “water” in that sort of stock when love’s merger is successfully promoted.

Well, Eph and his young wife turned their backs on Keokuk society and, with their little all of worldly goods, joined a mule train to cross the great plains to the land where the setting sun paints glory on land and sea and in its rising from behind majestic mountains makes praise of God spring from the heart of man.

Then, for weeks and weeks the train crept across prairie and desert, through the cold shadows of valleys that cleft the mountains, across streams too deep to wade. Water was scarce very often, too. Food sometimes ran low. And at night the wolves howled while campfires on distant hills made the women and children crowd close to the men who sat with men with loaded guns on their knees. Indians butchered men, women and children of a train that was following them. Two days later came news that Indians had knifed, scalped, and horribly tortured to the last human being a big train that was ahead of them.

One evening Buffalo Jim, notorious as the most bloodthirsty chief of all Indians, visited their camp. All the people of the train prayed that night and Eph sat with one arm around his bride and the other around his rifle for Buffalo Jim meant horrible death. But something pleased Jim and there was no massacre and so through more hardships and terrors the train went creeping into the west and it was altogether such a honeymoon trip for Eph and his wife as few couples ever pass through.

What a freak this thing named love is! Often it seems to refuse to live with people who have everything. Then again, it forever abides with and grows strong and everlasting with couples who have little, who go through hardships, misery, terrors and even shame together and is, in joy and sorrow, in pleasure and pain, in success and defeat, up to—nay, beyond—the very doors of death the glory of glories of human life.

But we mustn’t leave Eph honeymooning out back there in that mule train. We’re going to life him out of that mule train fifty years forward, fifty years of loyalty, struggle and triumph over the trials of life. At San Diego last Christmas day, Mr. Eph Hastings and the wife who crossed the plains with him celebrated their golden wedding anniversary. He was very gray and bewhiskered but still sturdy. She couldn’t hide all her wrinkles but her face was still round and sweet, and in her eyes was the light of Christmas 1861. Yes sir, they stood up before Rev. C.J. Harris and were married all over again before a crowd of children and grandchildren. Eph took the dear old lady in his arms, kissed her and swore to cherish and protect her until death. It was just beautiful. And the light on their faces proved that there are such things as loyalty and love that do not die. The Chicago Day Book, January 2, 1912.

50th wedding anniversary

Galen and I will be celebrating our fiftieth wedding anniversary next week and that inspired me to learn how couples in the past celebrated their anniversaries. I went to chroniclingamerica.com and did a "wedding anniversary" search.  The result yielded over 2,000 pages with 20 newspapers per page. 

This shows part of one of the 2,000 plus pages.

So far I have gone through 27 of the search pages and typed up 32 pages of interesting anniversary stories. I don't know yet if I'll have enough for a whole book but can add a section on marriages if needed. I also plan to include our story and a few photos.

Things noted so far:

There are an amazing number of golden wedding anniversaries listed in the old newspapers, far more than I expected. And some couples were married over sixty years.

Most of the golden wedding anniversary couples have been active and involved and continue to be "well preserved" for such old people.

Nearly all of the couples have lost at least one child. It was not uncommon to print the number of children the couple had and how many were still living.

They look crabby in the newspaper photos. I will include some of them in the book.

Some took incredible risks and moved west. Some lived their whole married lives in one place—something I just can't imagine.

A surprising number of couples were married on the husband's birthday. We were married on Galen's birthday.

Their idea of informal is quite different than mine. Here is an article I typed up today:

A delightful informal reception was given last night by Mr. and Mrs. Arthur in honor of their fifteenth wedding anniversary.
   Rev. B.F. Coulter, who performed the marriage ceremony was among the guests.
   In the dining room, where refreshments were served, a huge basket filled with white bride roses and maidenhair ferns stood on a large mirror in the center of the table. At each plate was a pretty floral design with the wedding date and 1906 inscribed. A canopy of ferns was suspended over the table and diamond dust was sprinkled on everything. In the drawing room the receiving party stood under a large white floral bell with the wedding dates inscribed on it, and this was hung from a thick canopy of ferns and smilax. Touches of scarlet were skillfully arranged among the banks of papyrus and bamboo in the reception hall and den, and yellow chrysanthemums decorated the library. De Nublia’s orchestra gave a program of music during the afternoon. Los Angeles Herald, December 2, 1906.

We are planning to wear jeans and tennies and serve pizza and birthday cake at our anniversary gathering. Our jam group will provide music.  :-) 

Stay tuned for more anniversary stories.