This week, while looking over the Jan 7, 1904 issue of a Nelson paper and preparing a story for next week’s issue of the Nuckolls County Locomotive-Gazette, I read a brief story I didn’t expect to find in the county seat paper. It said Will Blauvelt surprised his home folks in Hardy when he returned with a bride, Ida Hearne. When the Hardy residents learned 21-year-old Will had married, a group of Hardy young people attending the McDowell party went to the Blauvelt home and serenaded the newlyweds.
I knew about the Dec. 24 wedding for in my childhood the Blauvelt family gathered at my grandparents’ home every Christmas Eve to celebrate the birth of Jesus and the wedding anniversary of my grandparents. As was often the custom of people their age, the special meal featured oyster stew. I liked going to their house but I have a strong dislike for oyster stew. However, there was a time when community feeds featured oysters. I wonder why that was and have concluded oysters may have been among the first seafood products that could be economically purchased here in the midlands. People who had moved here from the coasts where seafood was plentiful were probably hungry for seafood of any kind. Recently I read a social media post reporting a family had ordered 50 live oysters for their Christmas meal. Ugh! Glad I wasn’t invited.
But why was the wedding of a young couple that planned to make their home in Hardy a newsworthy occasion for the readers of the Nuckolls County Herald?
One or two of Grandfather’s brothers would eventually live briefly at Nelson and Grandmother’s brother was also a brief Nelson resident but I don’t think any of them were living in Nelson in 1903. Grandfather was at the courthouse in Nelson in April of 1904 and purchased property at an estate sale on which they built a house west of what is now the Hardy hall. That story noted the purchased property was near the “Blauvelt Houses” so apparently others in the family may have lived nearby. Grandfather operated a dray business in Hardy, but the newlyweds were not longtime Hardy residents. By 1908 they were in the Ruskin community when their first son was born and in 1918, when my father was born, they were living on a farm north of Abdal. That farm gave my father a Nelson address on his birth certificate.
Before 1918 was over, Grandfather and his sister’s husband, Charles Phillippi, had established a furniture and undertaking business in Superior which was a forerunner of what is now the Megrue-Price Funeral Home and Walt’s Furniture.
At the time of his marriage, grandfather was employed as a brakeman on the Rock Island Railroad, a job he held for only a few months as he didn’t think railroading was a proper job for a married man.
According to the courtship story they told, he was the brakeman on a train from Fairbury to Nelson. As the train pulled up to the Fairbury platform to take on passengers, he saw a young red-haired girl standing on the platform waiting for the train. She was headed from her home in Hubbell to visit her older sister, Edna, who was living in Ruskin.
Edna was married to A. S. Andersen and they had built a house near the site of the Ruskin school. I’m not sure what her husband was doing in 1903 in Ruskin but I have been told he operated a Studebaker dealership in Ruskin, had a steam calliope that travelled about to area celebrations, and later had service stations in Superior, Nelson and I believe Nora. He also dealt in real estate.
A story from 1923, which was reprinted in last week’s issue of the Express, reported the Andersens had that year built a house in Superior at Ninth and Washington streets.
A young, red haired lady on the platform caught grandfather’s attention. As the train travelled west from Fairbury, he went into the passenger compartment and visited with her. When her visit in Ruskin was over and she was returning home, Will and Ida went to the Jefferson County courthouse in Fairbury and were married on Christmas Eve, 1903.
Grandmother didn’t want to lie so before going to the courthouse she suspected the judge might ask her age. She was a little more than 4 months shy of her 18th birthday and Nebraska girls before the age of 18 were not allowed to marry without their parents consent.
She didn’t have that consent for her parents had never met her beau.
So she arrived at a way to “avoid” lying. She wrote the number 18 on a piece of paper and stuffed it into her shoe. When the judge asked, “Ida are you over 18?” she could honestly say yes. She was standing over the number 18.
They appeared to have a good marriage. Grandfather always referred to her as “My best girl.” She joined him in many adventures. In 1920 they sold their Nebraska property and went to California where they bought a car and with friends travelled about the state for six months looking for a place relocate. In 1924, they spent the summer in a tent in Colorado’s Big Thompson Canyon while Grandfather trucked supplies for a construction project.
Though she had longterm health problems, I considered her to be a spunky woman and somewhat of a tomboy as she liked to wear overalls. They were married more than 55 years.
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