52 Ancestors Week 18: Love and Marriage

From Amy Johnson Crow: The theme for Week 18 is "Love and Marriage." There are so many ways you could approach this theme! Ancestors who got married multiple times; elopement stories; ancestors who were married a long time; or even the surname of Love!

We're no strangers to love....

    In my family tree there's no shortage of people who have been married for a very long time. As of this blog's posting, my parents have been married for fifty-three years and had their big fiftieth wedding anniversary at the height of the Covid pandemic. My maternal grandparents had their fiftieth anniversary in the summer of 1998 and I wrote about that awesome party last year. What do you say we talk about an anniversary I couldn't possibly remember unless I was a Time Lord? Get inside the Tardis because we're going back in time to 1963!

    The early 1960s saw many of today's pop culture icons make their debut. In 1963 alone many of my favorite characters first burst onto the scene like "Doctor Who", "Iron Man", the  "Uncanny X-Men" and Earth's mightiest heroes, "the Avengers". The year certainly saw some tragedy of course with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. However, time marched on and people still found time to celebrate in the midst of all the chaos going on around them.

    Enter Austin Felker and Henrietta Legault. My great-grandparents celebrated their fifttieth wedding anniversary in the fall of 1963. They were married by a Justice of the Peace in Haverhill City Hall on November 29th, 1913. Back then the city must have been so different. Think about it. Automobiles were just starting to be developed and if you wanted to get anywhere you had to take a train.

    By 1963, the happy couple had six children including my grandmother Natalie and twenty-two grandchildren.  If they were going to have a party, I hope they either rented a room or just had one big party in the backyard. That's quite the army, huh? The family still continued to grow as the decade marched on!

    The party took place the week before Kennedy's assassination and my mother remembered everything that happened in that historic month. I don't think anyone who was around in November 1963 will ever foget that month! My grandfather Robert had driven the Hamel clan from California to Haverhill for the anniversary celebration. He was on a month's leave from the Air Force and they had plenty of time to travel and stay in the city for as long as they wanted. They stopped once in Wyoming and went straight to Massachusetts from there.  According to my mother, Wyoming was pretty nice. Though, having to share a car with four siblings was NOT her idea of a good time!

Blanche Legault-Yerxa

    My mother and her family ended up staying with my grandmother's sister Elaine for the whole time they were in town.  The odd thing was that despite traveling clear across the country the party was adults only! Can you believe that? You travel clear across the country only to find out that no children were invited! I guess that means I don't have any story to tell, huh? WRONG!

    There's still plenty to tell and there are plenty of pictures of the event in my archive somewhere. I just have to look for them. My mother remembered that whole month-long stay in Haverhill vividly because of how chaotic things were on the news as events unfolded. The children weren't even allowed to watch the news after the tragic events took place in Dallas! Instead, they ended up watching Lee Harvey Oswald getting shot on live television in her cousin's house. Wow. So much for shielding the kids, huh?

    Well, they weren't going to be sheltered forever, guys....

   Back to the party itself. At the time my mother was fourteen years old and even though she wasn't invited, she got to talk to her great-aunts like Blanche and various relatives from New York afterwards. So, the party wasn't a total wash as far as family gatherings go. She got to see relatives she hadn't seen in a long time and catch up on all the latest gossip.

Austin and Henrietta circa 1949.

    As far as Austin and Henrietta go, I'm sure they had a wonderful time with their friends and family. I'm not sure who all went to the "no kids allowed" party. But, I'm sure some of Henrietta's sisters and Austin's half-siblings all went to the event. 

    My mother said that the party was likely held at a hall or someone's home. It's hard to tell just based on the picture I have here.  The background looks like it could be from someone's house. I'm not sure. Either way, it's a shame that none of the kids were there. I'd have loved to hear stories from the event and all I have is a few pictures here and there. It's fine. Both Austin and Henrietta were at my parents' wedding in 1971 and I KNOW that was definitely a good one. Always is when Italians are involved. Just sayin'!

    A fiftieth wedding anniversary is a huge milestone for any couple as it shows that a marriage has stood the test of time. Austin and Henrietta were a couple from similar backgrounds since her father died when she was eight and Austin's parents divorced when he was a baby. They both had to endure a lot of drama and that usually brings people together. They stuck it out through thick and thin and as a result they had an amazing family. It's just a shame that the kids were left out of the party. I don't think I'll be letting that one go right away! But, it is what it is. A 50th anniversary shows a good, strong marriage and having a veritable army of grandchildren was their legacy!

See ya next time!