A cute little baby on a cabinet card from Aunt Laura, circa 1902, that said Leah Linn(?)on the back. Now, I couldn't recall a Leah Linn, so I went to Ancestry and did a name search, and came up with Leah Jobes (born 2 Jul 1901) who married an Ernest Linn. That's where the story got interesting. One of my favorite sources to flesh out an ancestor's story is to try and find mention of them in newspapers of the time. I hit the jackport on this one!
What's this?
Both the Buffalo News (Aug 12, 1922 and Sep 11, 1922) carried articles that told the story of the Chautauqua County Fair Committee coming up with an idea - about a month before the fair - to hold a contest and offer $100 in gold, furniture and wedding presents to any couple in Chautauqua county who will consent to be married at the fair grounds on September 15. Couples who were interested had to send an application in for consideration. Because of the overwhelming response they got, the fair committee ended up drawing a couple's name.
As best I can tell, with the timeline from contest announcement to wedding being 30 days, the lucky couple must have had about 2 weeks to pull this together, by the time they were notified that they had been chosen.As luck would have it, Miss Jobes and Mr. Linn were planning a fall wedding, but hadn't settled on a date.
The Dunkirk Evening Observer described the wedding in a Sept 15, 1922 article:
The public wedding was the attraction at the County Fair- today. Miss Leah Jobes of Kennedy and Ernest Linn of Hanoverton, Ohio, were married on the platform before thousands by the Rev. J. Milton Harris of the Baptist church of Allegany, the bride's uncle. The wedding party drove to the fair grounds from Hotel Francis in four open carriages. Coachmen and footmen were attired in livery, with powdered wigs. The Akbar Sanctorum band of Dunkirk played the wedding march and the guard team of review escorted the bride.The fair committee provided a hotel suite and luncheon for the wedding party and family guests, and the prizes included $100 in gold, a mahagony dining set, a library table, and an upholstered chair, along with some smaller gifts.
A wedding to remember! It's too bad they never had children, that would have made a great story to pass on. I guess it's up to me to share it. But I'll leave you with this thought - can you imagine this happening today when weddings are planned months, if not a year in advance? Oh, and did you catch Uncle Milton's name?
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