Saturday, August 29, 2020

Family History Challenge - Day 5

 
This couple are my grandparents. I've told a bit of their story before, but this one is a love story.
My grandmother was 3 years old and living with her parents in a house on the family homestead in Ohio. One cold morning, her father got up to stoke the fire and went back to bed. Perhaps he was a bit careless. A rug near the fire caught fire and though the family was safe, the house burned to the ground.
Apparently the farm wasn't really adequate to support all the families now living on the homestead, or perhaps my great grandfather was just tired of farming, but he decided to move west to look for a better life. The family moved west by train, and my grandmother remembered the trip as both exciting and a bit scary.
 
In their new home, my grandfather was able to give all of his girls (there were several) a college education. My grandmother studied and became a teacher at what was then Cheney Normal School. One summer, she was invited to visit one of her classmates and met the girl's handsome brother. Soon, a romance blossomed between them. However, her father refused to permit their marriage because he said that he didn't educate his daughters for them to become farm wives - he didn't want any of them to have to work that hard.
 
Unwilling to accept that answer, the couple eloped and was married by the Justice of the Peace in a neighboring county. This is the couple on their wedding day, as you can see from the caption, which is in my grandmother's handwriting.

No comments:

Post a Comment

It is never fun to write into a vacuum. I would love to know you were here, so stop and say hi!