Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 165, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 July 1915 — CELEBRATE THEIR FIFTIETH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY [ARTICLE]

CELEBRATE THEIR FIFTIETH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY

Former Residtnts of Mt. Ayr Recipients of Fifty Gold Coins On Occasion. The Republican has been handed a copy of the Homer, 111., Enterprise, containing an account of the golden wedding celebration of Mr. and Mrs. D. Wright, residents of this vicinity about thirty years ago. Mr. Wright is the brother of Randolph and Jeff Wright, of near Mt. Ayr. A partial account of the celebration follows: The children of Mr. and Mrs. D. Wright, with their families, were all together July 4 and 5, 1915, for the only time in the past 14 years, Aaron, the oldest son, traveling the most of two nights between here and Detroit, Mich., in order to be present and back again for his work Tuesday morning. The company of sixteen relatives took dinners together on July 4th at D. Wright’s home in town and on July sth at the home of Squire Lee in the country. A photograph of the crowd was secured. The children presented each of their parents with a comfortable rocker, and Mr. Wright presented Mrs. Wright with 50 gold coins, one for each year they have been married. Fifty years ago on July 13, D. Wright and Mary Ellen Hyer were united in marriage at Washington C. H., Ohio. The incident was somewhat romantic, in fact, quite so, from the viewpoint of the neighbors in that community. A squire was called from his midnight repose, and the ceremony quickly said, while her parents were unaware that she had left the home. Taking a night train they went at once to Mt. Ayr, Ind., where D. Wright had grown up, and where his parents still lived. They fitted up a team and wagon and moved overland to Mason county, 111., near Ha--vana, where they started up housekeeping in a one-room house at a cost of about S2O, and this, too, at war prices, being in 1865. The first calico dress purchased after their marriage cost 25 cents per yard, and that not the best grade either. Forty acres of raw prairie land were soon purchased in Mason county at $5 per acre, with a capital of SSO, the balance, $l5O, was borrowed at 10 per cent for five years.

By this time the ire of the Ohio relatives had subsided and on invitation they returned to Ohio and resided for about two years, then emigrated to Homer, 111., in 1878, he in a wagon overland, and she by railway. They purchased a tract of the D. Wright homestead, where Squire Lee now lives, at S4O per acre. The grandparents of D. Wright emigrated from the state of Delaware to Ohio with six children, walking all the way. The mother of D. Wright, who was the youngest of the family, about one year old then, was carried in their arms all the way. The father of D. Wright was a pioneer in Indiana and helped erect the first house in Warsaw, Kosciusko county, Indiana. Mrs. Wright’s father was the first white child bom in Fayette county, Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. Wright have resided in or near Homer since 1868. Next week they will pay a visit to the Ohio community, where they caused so much talk a half century ago.