McMurray Family, Helbling Family, Cooper Family, Broida Family, (Click for Family Trees)
Today is a very special day in our family- there will be a wedding!
Young brides and grooms think that their wedding is a celebration of their love, and it definitely is that. It is their most special day, to long be remembered by themselves and all the loving family and friends who share the joyful event.
But…
♥ Every wedding is a reaffirmation of love and how it endures through the years.
♥ Every wedding is the start of something- a new chapter in the book of life, in which one builds a career, maybe a business, a set of new relationships, and (hopefully) a lifetime of love and support.
And…
♥ Every wedding is a reinforcement of the new family as a small unit within a much larger set of families.
So it is also a time to think about all those marriages that came before and helped to make us who we are, with our random inheritance of DNA.
Today, let us take a bit of a walk through the past, remembering the marriages of our ancestors and the happiness they must have felt on their own special day, or that of their children. Joy fills our hearts as we think of the life these couples built together, and the legacy they have left us.
The above is the oldest wedding picture we have.
Cooper was Helen’s maiden name- they were second cousins- so that made things easy name-wise.
Some folks eloped so we have no actual wedding picture of them:
Sure seems like there would be wedding pictures somewhere within the Payne-McMurray family, but don’t have any for this couple either:
Lynette was just nineteen, and had been living with her maternal uncle, Court K. Burnell, after she moved from California to Iowa. C.K. travelled quite a lot, and that may be why A. S. Burnell gave permission for Lynette’s marriage.
A.S. Burnell was most likely another maternal uncle, Arthur Strong Burnell, who was living in Newton, Jasper, Iowa, in the 1900 US Federal Census. Both uncles had daughters around Lynette’s age (and C.K. also had sons) so Lynette had quite a bit of family in Newton, where she and Will McMurray spent the rest of their lives.
These were all long marriages.
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Today’s wedding ceremony fills our hearts to bursting, and it surely will overflow into tears- but they will be (mostly) happy tears. Today, it is our child- a product of our love- who marries, and who continues the legacy of love through time.
Oh, Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy!!
Notes, Sources, and References:
- Family treasure chest of photos.
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