Wedded in Under an Hour
A long-distance correspondence turns into a lightning-fast wedding after a lamp nearly explodes.
Following the romance of Col. Stout and his Eastern bride, L. Waldron of Fort Spokane and Miss Eveline Burton of Maryland, Wisconsin, were married last night in Davenport. Waldron had instructed the local landlord to prepare for her arrival. Upon her arrival yesterday, she telephoned Waldron, whom she had never met, and he drove in from the fort. After a ten-minute conversation, the couple decided they were perfectly suited and wed immediately. They had been correspondents for several years after connecting through 'Heart and Hand,' a match-making journal. An omen occurred when a large hanging lamp in the room nearly exploded during the ceremony, pausing the proceedings until it could be removed. The groom, a water-works superintendent, is younger and smaller than his bride.
“From the time the parties met until they were married an hour did not elapse.”
Long before Tinder and eHarmony, the 'Heart and Hand' column served as the frontier version of modern dating apps. It highlights the desperation and optimism of the pioneer era, where marriage was often a pragmatic, accelerated decision based on written correspondence.
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