Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 68, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 April 1908 — MAMMA SAID “YES” CLERK SAID “NO” [ARTICLE]

MAMMA SAID “YES” CLERK SAID “NO”

Mother’s Consent Failed to Procure License for 15 Year Old Girl to Get Married. Laura Evaline Ward was accompanied by her mother, Mrs. J. W. Ward, to the county clerk’s office Friday, where it was expected that a marriage license would be issued to her to marry Charles Harvey Jacks, formerly of Lee, but for several weeks a barber in the shop of Free Wood, the colored tonsorial artist Last Sunday Jacks and his 15 year old sweetheart spent the day with bis parents at Lee and the next day he proclaimed to his acquaintances in Rensselaer that they had been married. Investigation proved that he had not procured a marriage license here and when confronted with this fact he weakened and said he was playing a “joke,” presumably on himself. But the marriage bee was buzzing sharply in his cranium, and he decided by Friday that a sure-enough wedding would be better than a bluff and he had his parents come in from Lee to see him married. The parties went to the court house, and all of the arrangements were made Jacks had answered the catecbismal Interrogatives in the"applicatlon blank and had appended his name to the document and the girl was making reply to the questions when It came out that she would not be 16 years of age until May 14th. “I can’t issue you a license,” said the deputy. < "Why, I give my consent,” said the mother. “But the laws of the state provide that a license can not be issued even with the parent’s consent to a girl who is not 16 years old,” replied the deputy. “Come to this office with your daughter on May 14th I will issue the license.” “Hump,” said the prospective groom, “I might be out of the notion by that time.” “If you are, don’t come,” said the deputy, as she tore up the soi'ed applicantion blanks. But, fearing that he might change his mind, he determined to make another attempt to get married, so he and the girl took the 3:18 train Friday afternoon with the expressed determination of going to Michigsn, If his money would hold out, to get a license. When Charlie starts in to play a Joke, he proposes to play it, if It involves a trip around the world.