Marriage License

March 18, 1930  We went to Meade where I bought our marriage license.  After that we made some short visits.  For supper we were at C. J. Classens, and then we went to John J. Reimers for a bit.  Also went to Peter Rempels.

The State of Kansas required prospective couples to appear before the county probate judge to get a license that would entitle them to get married.  And so Cornelius and Margaret went to Meade to Judge Florilla DeCow to state their intention to get married and to get the license to take with them to the wedding ceremony.  And of course, they visited more people.

By the way, Judge DeCow pronounced her last name "de-koo," probably to avoid the unpleasant association of being called a cow.  But it did no good, at least to young Mennonite boys, because kuh (pronounced "koo") meant cow in German.  Uncle Henry, if he will admit it, may remember being one of those boys making fun of Florilla DeCow when he was in school and she was county school superintendent.

The top half of Cornelius and Margaret's marriage license, the part that the judge filled out on the 18th when they appeared before her.  When I was in junior high, I wrote a letter to the Kansas Department of Vital Statistics and got this copy.  Notice that he gave his address as Morris, Canada, and that both were old enough not to require a parent's approval.