I hadn't originally planned to have a part three, any editor I have ever worked with has claimed me to be too wordy. However, I just had to add this. While recently going through more of my mom's things, I found a newspaper article of Grandma and Grandpa's marriage, and their 50th Wedding Anniversary.
I remember the anniversary party, I was in high school and my youngest brother couldn't attend because he had some childhood illness that had escaped him earlier. The original wedding announcement is quite a treat!
The anniversary announcement could have come from any number of newspapers far and wide. Grandpa wasn't the least bit shy and was very proud to have lived so long because the results of a bout of undulant fever early in adulthood plagued him his entire life. Newspapers did not then charge for such information, and they were wintering in Florida and had very large, extended families where such items were also considered newsworthy, so I really don't know. Date would have been near the end of March of 1973 so that those who may have accidentally been overlooked when the invitations went out, would still be aware of the party and attend if they so chose.
One note that always makes me giggle, is that it is traditional in that area at that time to add a note at the bottom of invitations along the line of "the omission of gifts is requested" which Grandpa thought was silly. He had Dad build a large built-in wall unit in the "parlor" to hold all of the loot, lol. I don't know where any of it went -- gold vases, gold rimmed glasses and the like, not real gold, I'm sure.
Of course from a genealogical or possibly cultural perspective, the fact that local newspapers ran stories decades previously listing who attended and the gifts they gave would be extremely interesting. Talk about peer pressure!
Extremely popular in the mid 1970s were wedding and anniversary cakes with a fountain in the bottom and the cakes piled up on pillars. Grandma and Grandpa of course had gold-colored water in their fountain. Mom (Shirley Mae Fleece Moore) is behind the cake. I probably should have cropped the photograph but I wanted to show how they were printed then with the border and year.
The guest books for the anniversary party in Ohio (at the Belle Center VFW Hall), the one in Florida, and the cake topper for one of them. The pedestal is missing along with whatever was on top because there's a divit for something to sit in, maybe a bow or a bell.
Grandma's handwriting in the front of one of the books. There were pages and pages of signatures from attendees, I'm sure Grandpa thumbed through them often.
When Mom died, I asked for, and received, all of the items that were scannable so I can share everything with relatives; after all, most of MY generation are now grandparents ourselves so there are a lot of decedents.
I remember the anniversary party, I was in high school and my youngest brother couldn't attend because he had some childhood illness that had escaped him earlier. The original wedding announcement is quite a treat!
WEDDING ANNOUNCEMENT
ANNIVERSARY ANNOUNCEMENT
I suspect these newspaper articles were originally in Grandma's possession because my mom and one of her sisters were pretty good about labeling their own things. The wedding announcement was from the Bellefontaine, Kenton or Belle Center newspapers, sometime in February of 1923.The anniversary announcement could have come from any number of newspapers far and wide. Grandpa wasn't the least bit shy and was very proud to have lived so long because the results of a bout of undulant fever early in adulthood plagued him his entire life. Newspapers did not then charge for such information, and they were wintering in Florida and had very large, extended families where such items were also considered newsworthy, so I really don't know. Date would have been near the end of March of 1973 so that those who may have accidentally been overlooked when the invitations went out, would still be aware of the party and attend if they so chose.
One note that always makes me giggle, is that it is traditional in that area at that time to add a note at the bottom of invitations along the line of "the omission of gifts is requested" which Grandpa thought was silly. He had Dad build a large built-in wall unit in the "parlor" to hold all of the loot, lol. I don't know where any of it went -- gold vases, gold rimmed glasses and the like, not real gold, I'm sure.
Of course from a genealogical or possibly cultural perspective, the fact that local newspapers ran stories decades previously listing who attended and the gifts they gave would be extremely interesting. Talk about peer pressure!
Extremely popular in the mid 1970s were wedding and anniversary cakes with a fountain in the bottom and the cakes piled up on pillars. Grandma and Grandpa of course had gold-colored water in their fountain. Mom (Shirley Mae Fleece Moore) is behind the cake. I probably should have cropped the photograph but I wanted to show how they were printed then with the border and year.
Grandma's handwriting in the front of one of the books. There were pages and pages of signatures from attendees, I'm sure Grandpa thumbed through them often.
When Mom died, I asked for, and received, all of the items that were scannable so I can share everything with relatives; after all, most of MY generation are now grandparents ourselves so there are a lot of decedents.
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