52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks (2020) – Week 25: Unexpected—My Grandparents Marriage License Location

This is my third year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow. I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails into the Past. I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways.

Tom & Pansy - 1930s
My grandfather, Tom J. Johnston, Jr. was from Gustine in Comanche County, Texas. He met my grandmother, Pansy Louise Lancaster in her hometown of Stephenville in Erath County, Texas. My mother, Lela Nell, was born in Stephenville in 1934.

So, when were my grandparents married?

In my early days of doing genealogy, I never got the marriage date for my grandparents. I had their birth dates and places, but not their
marriage. They didn’t seem to celebrate their anniversary, at least not publicly, so I didn’t know it by that way either.

My sisters speculated that perhaps they had to get married, due to the upcoming birth of their child, Lela Nell. Perhaps that was why they didn’t advertise their marriage date.

Many years ago, I searched the microfilms of marriage records at the Family History Library and got no results for a Johnston-Lancaster marriage in either Comanche County nor Erath County. At that time, there was no state-wide Texas marriage index that was public.

Fast forward to present day and FamilySearch has digitized Texas marriage licenses and certificates from their microfilm. They have also been indexed, so now there is publicly a state-wide index for those records that are digitized. Searching the index brought up the Tom Johnston—Pansy Louise Lancaster marriage on 15 December 1933, just nine months before the birth of Lela Nell.[1]

However, when my grandmother went into an assisted living facility in the late 1990s, I got to bring home most of her paperwork. Included in this paperwork were various birth, marriage, and death certificates, property deeds, and insurance and medical records. There was a physical copy of their marriage record from Hood County, Texas.

The marriage took place in Comanche County by the Precinct No. 1 Justice of the Peace, R.B. Waldrop on 15 December.[2] The license had been taken out on 14 December. There is no separate application, only the certificate for the license, the marriage detail, and the return. This certificate my grandmother had in her papers was created for her on 22 Feb 1944.

Why was the license obtained from Hood County? Were they hiding the fact they were getting married? Some people don’t want the announcement of their taking out the license to be in the newspaper. If so, then why did they marry in Comanche County?

Another reason could be that Tom was working in Hood County on a construction job and he obtained the license while on lunch or after work.

There are no photos of the wedding in their collection. There is no notice of the marriage in these local newspapers: Comanche Chief, Dublin Progress, or the Stephenville Empire. I looked for a newspaper at the Portal to Texas History (where there are images of Texas newspapers) but there were none for Hood County. Hood County is to the east of Erath and Erath County is to the east of Comanche.


No answer to my question as to why the license came from Hood County or as to why there was no notice in the local newspapers. It shall probably remain a mystery as anyone who would know are long gone.


[1] I searched these two databases at FamilySearch: “Texas, County Marriage Records, 1837-1965” and “Texas, County Marriage Index, 1837-1977.” The image was found on the first database.
[2] State of Texas, County of Hood, Certified Copy of Marriage License, Tom Johnston and Pansy Louise Lancaster, recorded in Vol I, p 161 Marriage License Records; certificate copy issued in 1944, Johnston Family Papers, privately held by Lisa S. Gorrell.

Copyright © 2020 by Lisa S. Gorrell, Mam-ma's Southern Family, All rights reserved.

Comments

  1. Miss MerryJune 18, 2020 at 5:51 AM

    Am I reading the dates correctly that one license is dated 1933 and the other dated 1944? Did they take a license in 1933 and never marry and then remedied the situation 10 years later?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lisa S. GorrellJune 18, 2020 at 6:08 AM

      The copy issued in 1944 was a copy, just as if I asked the clerk for one today it would be dated 2020.

      Delete

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