Mom’s caption on these photos is just “mock wedding” and the names of the participants. I understand about kids having a play wedding among themselves, but it seems like there must have been more to this than girls goofing around. Was it for a skit at the community hall or something?

Above, from left, Waneta Averhoff, Mom and “Mrs. Swank” performing a mock wedding in Tallman, about 1927. One assumes Mrs. Swank was serving as the mock minister.

This is another, clearer photo of the group. The bridal bouquet appears to have been garden vegetables.

I find three women who would have been a “Mrs. Swank” in the Tallman area in the 1930 census. However only Lena Swank appears to be in an age range consistent with the photo (she would have turned 28 in 1927).

Waneta Averhoff was 2½ years younger than Mom (despite her being considerably taller in these photos). She and her older sister Pearl, who was one year younger than Mom, lived in the Tallman area. They got ribbons for their pigs at the county fair. Mom’s album contains photos of Pearl and Waneta with their pigs, but I didn’t post them because I couldn’t see a connection to our family history.

I always want to know what happened to the people we encounter in Mom’s life in Tallman, but it’s hard to get much information unless I happen to find an obituary with some detail in it. All I can tell you about Waneta is that she moved to San Francisco five or so years after these photos were taken and worked for Zellerbach Paper until she married someone named Ralph Davis. She apparently remained in San Francisco for the rest of her long life (she lived to be 100).

Lena Swank’s husband Wilmer passed away in 1958. She lived until 1974. At the time of her passing at age 75, she was living in Phoenix, Arizona. I don’t have enough information to determine whether she was a permanent resident there or a snowbird, but she is buried with her husband in Sand Ridge Cemetery near Lebanon.

Mom, of course, got married for real about six years after the mock wedding.