Girl Makes Choice of Lovers; Faints

1920

When Two Bring Licenses, She Tears One Paper to Shreds.

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota. — For better or for worse Miss Margaret Corcoran made her choice between two lovers and was to be married at once to Howard Rebeck.

Faced with the necessity for making a choice between Rebeck and Donald Walp, both of whom visited her home armed with a marriage license, Margaret fainted. Her parents favored Donald.

As the men glared at each other across a library table the girl picked up Walp's license and tore it to shreds. Then she fainted. Her parents have assented to her choice.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Aug. 7, 1920, p. 1.

Bride Braves Flames for Another's Babes

1920

Alone, She Invades Smoke-filled Rooms on Fifth Floor.

NEW YORK, N. Y. — Thru blinding, gagging smoke, Mrs. Marie Kearney, 20 years old, groped for two children supposedly left behind in the burning five-story house in the Bronx, until she collapsed. She was found unconscious and brought to safety by other women.

Mrs. Kearney, a bride of two months and a former yeomanette, was on the roof of her home when the frantic appeals of a mother who believed her two children were in a top-floor apartment of the imperiled tenement reached her from the street.

Alone, she crossed the roofs and climbed down thru the suffocating smoke, entering all four smoke-filled apartments on the top floor in a vain search for the youngsters. Mrs. Kearney then continued to the next floor, where she met a man who told her the children were safe.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Aug. 7, 1920, p. 1.

Gypsy Girl Bride Held for Ransom

1920

Father Gives Her Up When Hubby Pays $500

This is Romany Custom, Explains Parent

NEW YORK, N.Y. — The kidnapping of Mrs. Lena Stevens from her home in Cleveland by her father, who held her from her young husband for $500 ransom, has been explained. Instead of finding a villainous parent, Newark detectives learned of a gypsy custom which made the "ransom" legitimate.

George Stevens married Lena Judson, a gypsy, about a year ago. They hit the gypsy trail by automobile, slept outdoors, cooked their meals in the fields and enjoyed a prolonged honeymoon.

Father Starts on Their Trail

Through a mysterious channel Ephraim Judson, the father of the bride, heard that his son-in-law was mistreating his daughter. So he set out to find the couple. When he found them he discovered that the reports were false and had been spread by a rival for the girl's hand.

Judson then demanded $500. He said he had spent this amount of money in ascertaining that his son-in-law was the right kind of husband. Stevens promised to pay, and the couple returned to their Cleveland home.

But the money was not forthcoming, and a week or two ago Mrs. Stevens disappeared. The husband told the police, and they decided it was a case of kidnapping when he showed a letter asking $500 for the return of his wife. Stevens searched and finally found her at her father's home in this city.

Both Wait for $500

Judson explained the circumstances of the "kidnapping," and the son-in-law wired his father in Cleveland to send him $500, so he could get his bride.

The police found the young husband living with the gypsies in a small store in Newark, New Jersey. He explained that his father-in-law, by gypsy custom, was entitled to the $500.

So Stevens is in Newark, hoping his father will send him the $500, while Mrs. Stevens is in New York, hoping her father gets the $500. And husband and wife are hoping to be reunited soon.

Girl Bride Takes Poison with a Smile

1901

Girl Bride Drains Cup in Presence of Husband

CHICAGO - Mrs. Belle Foran, a girl bride, kissed her husband, and sent him off smiling and happy to his work. Then she sent a neighbor's child after him, and when he returned she confronted him with a cup in her hand.

Her cheeks were flushed as if with pleasure and she smiled as she said: "Tom, I'm going take poison." The boy husband did not try to check her, because he thought she was jesting and held only a cup of water in her hand. Then she swallowed a draught of carbolic acid and sank to the ground in an agony of pain.

In two hours the bride was dead. Foran knelt at the side of the body and cried; then resolutely folded his arms and denied admittance to the relatives who had opposed his marriage. It is supposed the girl was despondent because her marriage had resulted in the estrangement of her husband from his family.

—Dubuque Daily Telegraph, Dubuque, IA, Sept. 6, 1901, p. 3.

Throwing Old Shoes After a Bride

1878

The slipper or shoe is popularly supposed to be thrown for good luck, and in some parts of Europe the custom is to throw it after sailors about to go on a voyage, and after all who enter on perilous enterprises, such as marriage.

A writer in Notes and Queries traces it back to the Hebrews, where it had a different meaning, symbolizing a transfer of authority or dominion. References to this custom may be found in Psalm ix, Psalm cix, and in Deut. xxv. He supposes that the receiving of a shoe was an evidence and symbol of asserting or accepting dominion or ownership; the giving back a shoe the symbol of rejecting, or resigning it. He thinks that originally the throwing of the shoe after the bride was a symbol that the father or guardian renounced his authority over her, and the receipt of the shoe by the bridegroom, even if accidental, was an omen that that authority was transferred to him. There is no doubt that such was sometimes the meaning of the transfer of a shoe.

It is related by a Danish poet that a Norwegian king in the eleventh to twelfth century, having conquered a portion of Ireland and Scotland, sent to Ireland his dirty shoes and commanded the king, who lived there, "to wear them with honor on Christmas day in his royal state, and to own that he had his power and kingdom from the Lord of Norway and the Isles." If such was the original meaning of shoe-throwing, it has now lost its significance. Instead of one shoe, a dozen or more are thrown, and in some countries wheat, rice, etc., accompany or take the place of old shoes. The supposed meaning to-day is that the shoe thrown after a newly-married couple will give them good luck.

Rival Kidnaps A Bride

1920

Girl On Eve of Marriage Is Stolen By Man Whom She Had Rejected

CHICAGO, Feb. 25.—(Special.) Police of three cities were busy yesterday trying to locate pretty Iolanda Sabatini, aged seventeen, who was kidnapped Monday night, by a suitor she had spurned, and whisked away just on the verge of her marriage to another man, who was agreeable to both the girl and her parents.

Late last night the father of the girl received a telegram, apparently filed at Rockford, Ill., which said:

"I have kidnapped Iolanda. Do not worry."

This was signed by Joe Falco, who was a soldier at the Rockford encampment and the parents of the girl believe he is holding her prisoner there or at Beloit, Wis.

The girl was to marry Lawrence Menconi. While he was at the house Sunday night, Falco was discovered peering in the windows. Presumably he realized that his time was short, as the girl would soon become the bride of his hated rival and decided upon quick action. Iolanda started for a nearby grocery Monday evening and the police believe Falco and some confederates were in waiting with an automobile into which they threw her and drove across the country to Rockford.

—The Evening State Journal and Lincoln Daily News, Lincoln, Nebraska, February 25, 1920, page 7.