In her diary entry of Saturday, March 30, 1957, my great grandmother Virta Knutz recalled the day she married her husband Will:
“47 years ago today we were married and such a day as it was; it rained, hailed, wind blew hard and it blizzarded all before noon but that did not stop me; Delbert [her brother] took me to the depot and waited with me till the train came; I had to go to Huron (from Esmond) to meet Will. Henry Thompson and his girl Stella were there to be married at the same time we were; we were witnesses for each other. We ate our dinner in a hotel which is now torn down and there is a gas station and truck parking lot there now. After dinner we were married and did some shopping and drove home; we used horse and buggy those days, had to drive about 7 miles; got home I got my first meal for us; which was (as I remember) bacon and eggs and potatoes.”
Above: Their marriage certificate
They would celebrate eight more anniversaries together before Will’s death in 1966.
Such a wonderful post! What a gift to have the diary. Contrasting this with modern wedding practices takes my breath away.
ReplyDeleteThanks - Yes, the train ticket and the cost of dinner were their only wedding expenses! :)
ReplyDeleteThe remark about being witnesses for another couple reminds me of how many times I have seen marriage records reflecting this phenomenon (this was from the Arkansas marriage records on Family Search).
ReplyDeleteThis is still a common practice for civil weddings. If you do have have the means or foresight to bring along two witnesses, then the couple before or the couple after will act as a witness to your vows. My mom worked for the courts, so was very accustom to this.
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