In this column we ask our members to share brief stories related to a specific topic each week. For this issue we asked for stories of love and romance among their ancestors.
Next Issue: Brickwalls are always frustrating! Give us a quick overview of your most difficult brickwall ancestor in 250 words or less. This could be a success story and how you solved it, or an ongoing mystery and maybe you’ll get some suggestions from readers! Please include some kind of photo, whether its a document image, headstone or a photograph of the ancestor. Send the text and image to gaamagazine@yahoo.com by February 21st to be included.
Ted and Pearlie Ford By Savannah Jane Johns
Ted and Pearlie Ford’s love story went from Arkansas to Pearl Harbor and back again. In 1945, Ted and Pearlie had a young son and were expecting another child. Ted was stationed at Pearl Harbor, a long way from the tiny community he had been raised in in Northeast Arkansas. In those days, you couldn’t tell anyone where you were stationed. He knew Pearlie was worried about him back home and wondering where he was stationed. He knew that he wouldn’t make it back home in time for the birth of their second child. So he sent home a letter saying “If the baby is a girl, name her Janie Pearl.” He underlined Pearl several times and Pearlie was able to figure out that he was stationed at Pearl Harbor. In April, a baby girl was born. And of course her mother named her Janie Pearl. Ted and Pearlie had five children altogether- 4 boys and 1 girl. Ted passed away in 1993 and Pearlie passed away in 2012. I am the granddaughter of Janie Pearl. My great-grandparents’ love story reminds me that although there was a big distance between them, their love for each other and their love for their country remained.
Bill and Dina By Emily Schroeder
My maternal grandparents were both WWII veterans, my grandfather, Bill Bellan, serving in the U.S. Army and my grandmother, Dina Licciardi, in the U.S. Coast Guard Women’s Reserve (SPARS). After their discharges, they both went back home to Cleveland, Ohio, to live with their parents. They joined the local Catholic War Veterans Post at Our Lady of Peace Church. My grandmother wrote about their meeting and courtship in a journal she wrote many years later…
“We met at Our Lady of Peace veterans’ association in August 1946. There were about 125 men and 7 women in the club. Somehow to my annoyance, Bill singled me out and everyone started to think of us as a couple. I really wanted to meet some of the other men, but eventually his persistence won out. I was drawn to his gentleness and thoughtfulness and loving ways. It was our mutual love of dancing that became a bond and we started dating seriously. When Bill asked me to marry him, I was hesitant – it was much too soon (a month after we dated). However, I soon changed by mind and we became engaged on Christmas Eve. Bill gave me my ring in church!”
Bill and Dina were married in Our Lady of Peace Church on September 24, 1947. They were married for 42 years before Bill passed away in 1989.
Emma Chose Love By Marilyn Nelson
My grandmother, Emma Steudle (born 1886) came from a working-class family in Mayview, Missouri. When she was in her teens, she went “into service,” but instead of doing domestic housework, she was employed by a wealthy family in nearby Great Bend, Kansas to be a companion to their daughter. Lillian Alice Moses, daughter of Clayton and Clara Moses, was just about the same age as Emma. Clara, her mother, had recently “retired to her rooms,” and was either severely depressed or ill. Clayton was a busy businessman and founder of the German-American Bank in town. The two girls got along famously and became great friends.
Until one day, when Emma saw a good-looking young carpenter. Joe Kramer was quite a charmer, and set about courting Emma. Lillian was frantic when she realized her companion might leave her, and pleaded with her father to somehow get Emma to stay with them. Clayton Moses offered Emma a chance to join their family. He would adopt her, and she and Lillian would legally be sisters. But only if she agreed to give up her beau who was, after all, lower-class.
Emma chose love. She and Joe Kramer married in 1908. Instead of a life of certain comfort and security, she married a charming ne’er-do-well who liked to drink and gamble. Emma found solace in her five children, including my dad, and never complained. I often wonder if Emma ever regretted her decision to marry.
A Secret Wedding By Ellen Anderson
My great-grandfather, Walter H. Bell, was married 3 times in his life (4 if you believe the 1910 census) and tracking his marriages has been interesting. But by far the most interesting story I have found has been his whirlwind romance with his first wife, Anna Hertel. City directories seem to suggest that Walter and Anna may have met because her sister worked as a receptionist at the same Minneapolis quarry where Walter was a sales rep. Apparently despite her being 24 years old, her parents disapproved of the match and so the couple never acted on their engagement. Nevertheless, the couple eloped on January 7th, 1907 in Great Falls, Montana, according to this newspaper article. Death records and census records show that Anna suffered from tuberculosis for many years and newspaper social columns show she frequently traveled to improve her health. Using this to their advantage, the couple concocted a ruse with the help of Anna’s doctor, who suddenly decided she needed to travel to Montana in January “for her health.” Anna took the train to Great Falls and the next morning Walter met her there to elope on January 7th, 1907. They immediately took the train back to Minneapolis as newlyweds.
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