A Pullman Elopement, Interrupted by Long Distance
A young couple marries in Colfax, then calls home to ask forgiveness. The bride's mother refuses to believe it and vows never to forgive them.
Nov. 25.—There was an elopement sensation in Pullman. While an angry mamma was making the telephone ring with her efforts to stop the marriage, Frederick J. Libby and Miss Ellen Grace Valk were quietly married at Colfax. Immediately after the nuptial knot was tied, the happy bridegroom called up his mother-in-law over the long-distance telephone and informed her that they were married and asked her to forgive them for having eloped.
But Mrs. Valk was not in a forgiving mood at that time, and in language that made the wires jingle she cried: “You lie, you are not married; I’ll never forgive you!”
Then Mr. Valk went to the store of W. C. Witham and found George Libby, and a sensational scene ensued. Mrs. Valk refused to be pacified or comforted and scolded the Libby family; Mr. Valk did not take it so much to heart.
Met Clandestinely.
Miss Valk is the only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. V. A. Valk of Pullman. Most of her life was spent there. She is an exceptionally handsome young lady, just past 19. Fred Libby and she have known each other for years. They have been attached for several months, and it is said Fred asked the consent of Mr. and Mrs. Valk to wed their daughter some months ago. The parents refused and forbade the young man to enter their house. Since that time, it is said, they met clandestinely many times. The marriage was not a matter of general public knowledge.
Fear the Convent.
This is said to have been one of the reasons for the elopement. To an intimate girl friend, Miss Valk confided that her parents had tried to put her in a convent, and she seemed in great fear that they would carry their threat into effect.
Libby is the oldest son of Mr. Libby, a local blacksmith. He worked in his father’s shop here several years. He has the reputation of being industrious, sober and having no bad habits. He is a good machinist and worked several years in the Great Northern shops at Hillyard. It is reported here that Mr. and Mrs. Libby went from Colfax to Hillyard, where he will take the position he formerly held in the shops there.
“You lie, you are not married; I’ll never forgive you!”
In 1903 the long-distance telephone was still novel enough to make an elopement feel like a live broadcast: the bridegroom called home before the family had any chance to absorb the news. The story is a reminder that fights over whom children may marry are old, but the technology that forces families to confront the news instantly is new in every generation. Today a text or a social-media post can do what that call did—deliver the fait accompli before anyone has time to soften it.
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