The Water Tank Romance
A flirtatious message left on a rural water tank led to an unlikely marriage between two strangers.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Harry Bruce of Quincy and Mrs. Percie McCotter of White Bluffs were married in Kennewick last Monday. The romance began at the end of last summer when a party of White Bluffs residents stopped at the Burke post office to get a drink. A woman in the group wrote her name and address on the water tank. A letter from Mr. Bruce arrived in White Bluffs, but the woman, already married, passed it to Mrs. McCotter. After an exchange of letters, the two met for the first time on a trip to Spokane and were married shortly thereafter.
“One of the women in a party... wrote her name and address on the water tank at Burke post office... An animated correspondence followed.”
In an era of digital dating apps, this story of a handwritten note on a water tank leading to marriage serves as a quaint reminder of how small-town social networks functioned before the internet.
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