A Delayed Marriage

As I mentioned in an earlier post, writing up the daily "family events" for my blog has sometimes encouraged me to look for more complete information on some of those events, when I discover that I have only a date but no year, only a state for a location, or sometimes no location at all.

This time I started with just a date — February 12, 1903 — and no location for the marriage of Elmer Gaunt and Edna Wright.  So I went hunting around for the location.

I discovered a marriage index for Tulare County, California that showed they married on February 14, 1903, not February 12.

Wonderful!  I had a location, but now I had conflicting information.

So I continued to search for other records about the marriage, hoping to resolve the discrepancy.

I then found five short newspaper squibs.

Kings County Sentinel (Hanford, California), Thursday, February 12, 1903, page 5

Hanford [California] Semi Weekly Journal, Friday, February 13, 1903, page 3

Visalia [California] Times Delta, Wednesday, February 18, 1903, page 2

Kings County Sentinel (Hanford, California), Thursday, February 19, 1903, page 5

We now have a short timeline:

Monday, February 9:  Elmer B. Gaunt and Edna L. Wright obtain a marriage license.

Monday, February 9:  Elmer's mother, Naomi (not Nanoma) Gaunt, dies.

Tuesday, February 10:  Both the death and the marriage license are reported in the newspaper.

Wednesday, February 11:  A funeral is held for Naomi Gaunt, on the day Elmer and Edna originally planned to marry.

Saturday, February 14:  Elmer Gaunt and Edna Wright have their delayed wedding.

Wednesday, February 18:  The Visalia Times Delta reports that the marriage took place near Tipton.

Thursday, February 19:  The Kings County Sentinel reports that the marriage took place at Tipton (which I interpret to mean in Tipton).

So I still have some conflicting information, but I think I can live with that discrepancy.