Hey Lydia, Guess Who Likes You!

Each year (usually around Valentine's Day) elementary-school students in Haverhill, Mass., pass on a message from a former pupil.

Yesterday morning the students descended on the historic Walnut Cemetery and remembered schoolboy emotions that ran through the heart of Haverhill's favorite son, John Greenleaf Whittier, when he was around their age.

It has become a tradition in Haverhill with local students gathering around the gravestone of Lydia Ayer to recite a poem by Whittier recalling his childhood sweetheart and a moment following a school spelling bee when she confesses, "I'm sorry that I spelt the word: I hate to go above you, because — the brown eyes lower fell — because, you see, I love you!" [Link]

I Hope His Application Wasn't Denied

Ryan Thomas Grace (now a patent attorney) proposed to his girlfriend in 2003 by way of patent application:

40. The method of claim 37 wherein at least one claim of the patent application recites:

“Ellie I've been in love with you for the last five years. I've known this since the day we met and the time we've spent together since that day has only made me realize this fact more. You have been by my side in every way a person could possibly hope and I would like nothing more than to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you please marry me?”

41. The method of claim 37, wherein at least one claim of the patent application recites “Ellie if you will marry me, after reading the remainder of this patent application, open the other envelope and tell the limousine driver to take you to the airport.”

[via Boing Boing]

All's Fair in Love and Obituaries

A young woman in Massachusetts lost her boyfriend to another girl. So she did what anyone would do: she caused a couple of newspapers to publish notices of her own death, then blamed her rival.

City Marshall Stone and Officer Mears, of Lynn, arrested a young woman named Ida M. Eddy at one of the hotels in Nahant yesterday afternoon upon a charge of publishing her own death in the Lynn Record of Aug. 29, 1878, and the Lynn Item of June 6, 1879. The notices purported to be sent from Abington, Mass., in each case, and were accompanied by letters signed in the first instance by "Deacon Gilmore," and in the second by the "Rev. Samuel Lee." The first notice stated that Ida M. Eddy died in Abington, of heart disease, Aug. 26, 1878, at the age of 21 years; the second, that Ida M. Eddy died in Abington, June 4, 1879, at the age of 21 years and 10 months. The accompanying letters gave a detailed statement as to the sufferings of the deceased during her last illness.

Immediately after the last publication in the Item, Miss Eddy herself called at the office of the paper and upbraided the editors in no measured terms for publishing the announcement of her death, when she was still in the land of the living. She, at the time, intimated that a Miss Jennie Bessom, a respectable young woman residing at Woodend, had caused the publication of the notices by forging the letters in which they were sent. [The New York Times, Aug. 14, 1879]

A November-December Romance

This item appeared in Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly in 1888, written by someone who never knew the love of an 80-year-old woman.

A CURIOUS MARRIAGE ENTRY

The Rev. Brooks Lambert, the Vicar of Greenwich, has disinterred and sent to the London Times a very curious entry in the marriage registers of St. Alphage, Greenwich, under the date November 18th, 1685 :— "John Cooper, of this parish, almsman in Queen Elizabeth's College, aged one hundred and eight years, and Margaret Thomas, of Charlton, in Kent, aged eighty years, by license of ye Lord Bishop of Rochester and leave of ye Governors of ye Draipers' Company."

This marriage must, we should think, have been got up by others than the parties themselves, as a vulgar sort of joke. Even if the ages be a little exaggerated, no sane people of that age would have entered into a tie of this kind on the very brink of the grave. Since the age of Methuselah, there can scarcely have been any such marriage.

Lucky in Love (They Hope)

Last year, no one wanted to have a baby on 6/6/06. This year, everyone wants to get married on 7/7/07.

[W]edding planners and venues have reported a startling rise in the number of couples who have booked weddings — especially in Las Vegas — on July 7, 2007, many of them having done so in the belief that 7-7-07 is a date with luck written all over it. [Link]

Most Impersonal Love Letter Ever

A postcard sent by World War I soldier Walter Butler to his fiancée Amy Hicks in Wiltshire was finally delivered this week—90 years late, and to their 86-year-old daughter Joyce. What interests me most is the narrow range of sentiments Walter was allowed to express.

Wartime security restrictions meant that soldiers were only allowed to send the most basic messages for fear of accidentally giving vital information to the enemy.

Soldiers were [...] provided with a list of printed options which they had to cross out or leave to be read as appropriate.

Walter left the line “I am quite well” undeleted, along with another saying that he had not received a letter from Amy “for a long time.” [Link]

Three's a Crowd

Members of the Mountain Genealogists Society in Colorado have put up a display at a local library called "Love Through the Ages." Dale Hoffman contributed an elaborately decorated document he had inherited.

Nothing says love like a marriage license, and in 1885 in Caldwell County, Mo., they knew how to say it right. Witness the grand document announcing the union of one William Bay to his sweetheart, Laura Rathbun.

It’s unnecessarily big, for starters, and busy with scrollwork and superfluous artistry in a vaguely Florentine style. And it features photographs of the happy couple, their unsmiling faces enshrined in elaborate, individual cartouches. Curiously, it also boasts the likeness of the presiding minister, who apparently felt that his role in the nuptials warranted that honor. [Link]

No word on whether he tagged along for the honeymoon.

Ancestry.com Gambles on Love

Ancestry.com is offering Vegas Betting Odds on whether you and your sweetheart will get married or divorced in Sin City. Someone at The Generations Network has grown a funny bone.

No psychics, counselors or members of your family were consulted in the creation of this site. Odds are based solely on Nevada marriage and divorce data from publicly available records in various Nevada county and state archives. Food for thought: If you’re unsure enough about a potential spouse to let a web site inform your decisions, we recommend you think twice. Ancestry.com accepts no responsibility for the success or failure of your marriage in Las Vegas. But in the case that you do live happily ever after, we’ll be happy to take full credit.

Not coincidentally, you can search 4.5 million Nevada marriages and 475,000 Nevada divorces at Ancestry.com for free through Feb. 28.

It Was Love at First Gravesite

Maldwyn Hughes, 86, and Shirley Luck-Hughes, 79, have been married for nine years. Both previously widowed, they met in a churchyard in Bethesda, North Wales, while doing genealogical research. After marrying, Maldwyn continued to live in Wales, and Shirley remained in Johnstown, New York.

Mr Hughes, a retired electrical engineer, said: "Neither of us wanted to move away from our families and our homes.

"We don’t see as much of each other as every other husband and wife but we are still happy.

"She calls me every Wednesday and I call every Saturday and we speak for about an hour about what we have been up to in the week.

"I do miss her but it helps that we can keep in contact on the phone." [Link]

There's Something About Mary's Scrubbing

Seiji Shiba of Lehi, Utah spent the weekend at a History Camp for Kids held at Camp Floyd/Stagecoach Inn State Park. The 10-year-old's family has a special connection to the place.

While serving at Camp Floyd, Seiji's great-great grandfather fell in love with a washer-woman named Mary Taylor, said RaFawn Rogers. When the soldiers were recalled in 1861, [Louis Strasburg's] military service was up and he stayed in Utah, eventually becoming the mayor of Tooele. Rogers said she wanted Seiji to come the history camp to learn more about his heritage and what life was like for his great-great-grandfather.

"What a wonderful way to teach kids history," she said. [Link]

In an unexpected twist, Seiji fell in love with a local washer-woman and refused to return to Lehi with his parents.

[N.B. Web sources, including the IGI, give Mary's surname as Armstrong.]

All They Need is Love ... and Occasionally a Defibrillator

The marriage of Nor Che Musa to wife Hukuntoh is the sort of event that causes genealogy software to issue dire warnings. The Malaysian groom is 33, his bride 104.

Nor Che Musa decided to marry Hukuntoh because he wanted to take care of her.

"The fate has been arranged by God, and I do not worry about people making fun of our marriage," he said.

Hukuntoh has been married for 21 times but has no children. [Link, via Neatorama]

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

Valentines for Genealogists

Through good times and bad
My heart you have carried.
There's no proof our grandparents
Ever got married.

Roses are red,
Violets are not.
I think that your census
Transcriptions are hot.

My heart tells me "Stop!"
But the truth must be told:
I've learned that your genome
Is really quite old.

The girl at the archives
Who captured my heart
Has now wrapped it up
In a pedigree chart.

We met at the graveyard,
Inside of the gate.
I'm saving the crypt
For our Valentine's date.

I need to know this—Earn my love!
Don't leave me here forlorn!
Just scribble down your middle name
And where your folks were born.

Your face is on microfilm
Locked in my mind.
I promise I'll never
Forget to rewind.

Let's start again and live our lives
The way our forebears did.
I'll steal some land from Indians—
You squeeze me out a kid.

Although it made
My brain explode,
I memorized
Your Soundex code.

I wouldn't lie—
Just look in the mirror.
Your age must be
A transcription error.

[tagged: genealogy, Valentine's Day]

Did She Do It On Porpoise?

From Ynetnews, posted Dec. 29, 2005:

Brit Jew marries dolphin

Joe Kot

Till death do us part? An unusual wedding ceremony was held in the southern resort town of Eilat on Wednesday, as Sharon Tendler, a 41-years-old Jewish millionaire from London married her beloved Cindy, a 35-years-old dolphin, Israel's leading newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported Thursday.

The groom, a resident of the Eilat dolphin reef, met Tendler 15 years ago, when she first visited the resort. The British rock concert producer took a liking to the dolphin and has made a habit of traveling to Eilat two or three times a year and spending time with her underwater sweetheart.

[snip]

Tendler said she and her newly wed husband will probably spend their wedding night bowling.

"But what kind of children would they have?" one of the children in the crowd asked his father.

[Read the whole story]

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree