The December brides – part 2
When the time rolls around each week to look at my family for a Saturday blog post, The Legal Genealogist loves finding something that’s a little out of the ordinary. And when the out-of-the-ordinary event is something I hadn’t known before, it’s even more fun.
So it was a total joy to open up John Cardinal’s terrific On This Day program — an add-on to the primary genealogy program I use, The Master Genealogist — a couple of weeks ago as I was looking forward to today’s blog, and to see the events that all took place on the 28th of December.
On December 28, 1879, Amos Wade Hendrix married Mary Isabella Robertson in Delta County, Texas. Their license was issued the day before, on 27 December 1879; the marriage itself was performed by G. W. Patterson, a Justice of the Peace in Delta County.1
Mary Isabella was the eighth of the 11 known children born to my 2nd great grandparents, Gustavus and Isabella (Gentry) Robertson. She was born 6 January 1863 in Mississippi,2 so she was not yet 17 when she married Amos, a farm hand nine years her senior.
They lived with the Robertsons in 1880,3 then in Hall County where Amos died in 1917.4
There’s just one set of images that the family believes are of Amos and Mary Isabella around the time of their marriage:
Amos and Mary Isabella Hendrix
Amos and Mary Isabella had eight children. Their youngest was a son, Sam Robinhood Hendrix. And, 61 years to the day after Amos and Mary Isabella were married, on December 28, 1940, Sam Robinhood Hendrix married Edith Elizabeth Waldrop at Lakeview, Hall County, Texas. The marriage was performed by O.C. Edwards, Pastor of the Lakeview Baptist Church.5
Theirs was a small quiet wedding, with no formal photos and just a couple of friends as witnesses. As far as their children know, the fact that their wedding was the same day as Sam’s parents was just coincidence.
But the children do have one photo of their parents they believe was taken on their wedding day somewhere in or near Hall County.
Sam and Edith Hendrix
Sam and Edith had four daughters. Their oldest is my second cousin Mary Ann, whose 50th anniversary was celebrated in last Saturday’s blog. Their second daughter is my second cousin Nedra. And, 22 years to the day after their parents were married, Nedra Beth Hendrix married Imants Dzintars (“Easy”) Abers, on December 28, 1962, at Sunset Baptist Church in San Francisco.6
Nedra reports that it was again a coincidence that the wedding was the same day as her parents and grandparents:
Mary Ann and I were both engaged and were planning our weddings. Our parents and sisters (who were in high school) were coming to California to visit us for Christmas. We thought the most expedient thing was to both get married while they were here. We decided against a double wedding. Mary Ann and Tom got married at the Berkeley Baptist Divinity School chapel on 12/22/62; …we had a family Christmas, then Easy and I were married 12/28/62 at his father’s church, Sunset Baptist Church in San Francisco. His father officiated, and my father said a wedding prayer. The sisters all served as attendants at both weddings.7
I love the story… but it gets better:
our wedding dresses, maid of honor, matron of honor and bridesmaids dresses were all homemade. Between our mother, a woman at the church, Mary Ann and me, we managed in a fairly short period of time to get six dresses made. It was joked that my mother might be hemming Mary Ann’s wedding dress as she walked down the aisle. We chose a pattern, fabric and color we both liked, and a red dress was made for each of us. I was Mary Ann’s maid of honor and she was my matron of honor (having just gotten married 6 days before me.) Our two younger sisters were bridesmaids in both our weddings. The three of them wore the red dresses in my wedding, and three of us wore the red dresses in Mary Ann’s wedding.8
So take a look at this gorgeous image from Nedra’s wedding:
"Easy" and Nedra (Hendrix) Abers wedding
And remember that the beautiful bride here was the maid of honor in the photo from last week, and the bride there is the matron of honor here! And if that’s not enough, Nedra’s and Mary Ann’s youngest sister Sue joined the family pattern when she married six years later, on 28 December 1968.
Not all of the family marriages lasted, but all contributed what any genealogist loves the best: more cousins!
Yet there is one that I wish had lasted just a bit longer. Just until yesterday…
For Easy Abers — who fell in love with Nedra the first time he laid eyes on her in 1961 — didn’t make it to his and Nedra’s 50th anniversary. He died on May 20, 2004. He and Nedra had 41 years together and, she says, there will be a golden ribbon around the flowers on his grave this year.
Love through the generations. It doesn’t get much better than that.
SOURCES
- Delta County, Texas, Marriage Book 1: 266, A W Hendrix and M I Robertson, 1879, marriage license and return; County Clerk’s Office, Cooper, Texas. ↩
- Colorado Department of Health, Death Certificate No. 2203, Mary Isabella Hendrix, 5 Mar 1950; Division of Vital Statistics, Denver. ↩
- 1880 U.S. census, Delta County, TX, Justice Precinct 3, enumeration district (ED) 20, page 502(D) (stamped), dwelling 117, family 118, Amos and Mary Hendricks in Gustavus Robetson household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 28 Dec 2012); citing National Archive microfilm publication T9, roll 1300; imaged from FHL microfilm 1255300. ↩
- Texas State Board of Health, Death Certificate No. 4856, Amos Wade Hendrix, 13 Feb 1917; Bureau of Vital Statistics, Austin. ↩
- Email, Mary Ann (Hendrix) Thurmond to Judy G. Russell, “Re: A question,” 16 Dec 2012. ↩
- Email, Nedra (Hendrix) Abers to Judy G. Russell, “Far more information than you can use!,” 19 Dec 2012. ↩
- Ibid. ↩
- Ibid. ↩
What a neat use of On This Day! I use TMG and John Cardinal’s other program, Second Site, but you’re tempting me to get On This Day as well.
Re the last photo: good marriages never last long enough.
On This Day is donorware, Karla, so no excuse not to have it!!! John Cardinal does awfully good work.
Beautifully done again, Judy! Thank you so much. Even though I’m intimately familiar with all of the information, I found my eyes filling with tears as I read it. These two stories of my family’s weddings, along with several others, will definitely go into the annals of my genealogical history!
It’s such a sweet story, Mary Ann, and I’m most grateful to you and Nedra for sharing your part of it!
I absolutely love, love, love the fur around the neckline of the bride’s dress – perfect for a December wedding!
I can’t think of anything about any of the dresses that I don’t like, Sheri — especially that they were hand-made!