In the late 1930s, the John Wright family certainly seems to have been busy with weddings. On October 19, 1935, Uncle Earl Wright married Edna Farrah in Long Beach, California. Edited to correct: While the family may have believed in November that Earl and Edna had been married in Long Beach, as they reported to the newspapers, they actually had eloped and had been married in Yuma, Arizona. On August 12, 1936, Uncle Irvine Wright married Hannah Smith (née Lane) in Jefferson (as mentioned in this previous post). On February 18, 1938, Uncle Ed Wright married Helen Jongewaard in Salem (see yesterday’s post). And then on September 16, 1938, in Huntington Park, California, Aunt Mina Wright married Marion Keller. It is the last of these that I will focus on in this post.
Aunt Mina lived with her parents in Jefferson until January 4, 1936. On that day, Grandma Minnie Wright along with her children Anna, Harold and Mina (Lee was still in high school), traveled to the Los Angeles area to visit Earl and Edna and (I imagine) to visit the McCormacks. (You may recall that Persis McCormack was Grandpa John Wright’s youngest sister.)
None of them had attended Earl’s wedding the previous October. The impression I get from the newspaper notices is that the family was not even informed that he was getting married until after the fact. So I’m sure Grandma Minnie, especially, was eager to check up on her son (and perhaps mend some fences, since it appears there was an estrangement of some kind). But I digress…
Part of the plan for this trip was to move Mina to the L.A. area to attend business college. I don’t know the details, but sometime between January 1936 and September 1938, Mina completed business college (I assume) and got a job at a bank. (At least that is the job she had at the time of her wedding.) Also during that time, she met Marion Keller. He was a machinist at Douglas Aircraft Corporation (at least he was at the time of the wedding).
According to the 1940 census, Marion was still working as an aircraft machinist, and they were living in Huntington Park. Their daughter Ann Louise had been born just a month before the census was taken.
I believe I am correct in saying that at some point Marion and Mina started their own business (was it office supplies or something?), and that business is still operating today.
Marion passed away July 2, 1990, in Whittier, which had been their home for most of their marriage.
But remarkably, Aunt Mina is still living as I write this. She will celebrate her 104th birthday on the 19th of this month (November 2020). Be sure to send her a birthday card.
Anyway, back to the wedding…
Marion and Mina were married at 8 PM September 16, 1938 at Huntington Park Methodist Episcopal Church. Afterward a reception was held at the McCormack residence in neighboring South Gate.
I am unable to identify anyone in the photo above except the bride and groom. I wasn’t able to find any detailed newspaper write-up of the wedding. Edited to add the following additional identifications: The bridesmaid on the left is Eleanor McCormack, cousin of the bride. The flower girl is Donna Wright, niece of the bride.
Grandpa and Grandma (John and Minnie) Wright traveled to Huntington Park for the wedding. (Their mode of transportation is not mentioned in the newspaper article. Since neither of them drove, either an unnamed child of theirs drove them, or they took public transportation. Edited to note they traveled by train.) And they took with them their oldest granddaughter Donna Wright, who was almost four at the time. (I wonder if perhaps something was lost in translation in the newspaper article and the entire Lloyd Wright family traveled to the wedding and took Grandma and Grandpa with them. Even as amazing as Donna’s memory is, she probably doesn’t remember this trip to clarify the situation.) Edited to note that it was only Donna that traveled with Grandma and Grandpa. They took her because she was flower girl.
I know 8 PM was a fashionable hour for weddings at that time. I remember that it was even when I was small. But how did people ever do that? An 8 PM wedding would be fine as far as I’m concerned, but most of my siblings would be asleep before the ceremony even started! ;–)