Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 259, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 October 1913 — Name Scribbled on Box Car Was Cupid’s Job [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Name Scribbled on Box Car Was Cupid’s Job

Minneapolis, minn.— That Cupid doesn’t always shoot Just in a straight line, however potently, and that some of his darts can wander from coast to coast, over bridges, through tunnels, over prairies and under mountains and then suddenly strike, was proved when Miss Margaret M. Barker of Pittsburgh, Pa., was granted a marriage license here to become the bride of Ernest Noon, a Minneapolis switchman, living with his mother at No. 2325 Fourth street North. The romance of “The Box Car Bride,’’ as the couple’s friends call her, is one that will gladden the hearts of countless young girls and pales into Insignificance Laura Jean’s best. Something more than a year ago, it seems, Miss Barker’s young brother scribbled her name and address upon car No. 26543 of the Erie railway. For 12 months or more it journeyed, making, so the records show, something more than 23,750 miles. Then it came to Minneapolis and Switchman Noon noticed the name and address. Of course it was ordained that he

should, and the ferine fate ordered him that same evening to send the young woihan the prettiest postcard he could find. And he did, and she sent one in reply, More cards were sent, photographs exchanged and the other day Miss Barker herself was an earnestly invited guest to the home of Mr. Noon’s mother. A marriage ceremony followed. “Why,” said she, “we just couldn’t help being happy; how could, we?” The box car bride Is twenty, quite good looking, and is a graduate of a Pittsburgh high school. Her mother, she explained, approved of her coming, as the expectant bridegroom could not get away to go east.