The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1898-03-18
BLUE RAPIDS ROMANCE.
Young Couple Married at the Tomb of
the Brides Mother One Year
After Her Death

Blue Rapids, March 18.-The following
story appeared in a Chicago paper re-
Gently: The facts upon which the sto-
ry is based occurred at Above Springs,
near which spot lives the authoress of
the romance.
The story is as follows:
No stranger wedding ceremony was
ever performed than the one which last
Sunday united Alfred Scammeland Mary
MoultOn in this place. They stood hand
in hand at the foot of a grave in the
Oak Hill cemetery and were there made
man and wife, at the grave of the moth
er of the bride, who had blessed and ap-
proved the union, but who died before
the pair united
The little company gathered there in
the city of the dead looked strangely
solemn in the fading light of the Feb
ruary day, and there was little to sug-
gest the gayety of a wedding in the SOL
emn words Of the minister or the grave
faces of bride and groom.
For many years Miss MoultOn, the
bride, had been fatherless. and between
her and her mother there had grown up
an intimacy and affection different in
many ways from that ordinarily exhib-
tied by mother and daughter. They
We're more like loving sisters. They
were friends and companions and the
tenderness and devotion each exhibited
toward the other had often been re-
marked by their friends.
And when over a year ago Alfred
Scanned came a-wOoing and wrought
daughter until she felt her life would
not be complete without him, the moth
er jOyed in the union and blessed it and
said it was we'll. She entered into all
the preparations for the crOwning event
in the life of her daughter with more
than a. mothers zeal and devotion. She
was as earnest in her work for the hap
piness of Mary as though it were her
own nuptial day which was approach
ing.
The wedding was set for February Is
of last year. The guests were hidden
and the feast was set and it remained
only for the words of the minister to
Join the lives of those who had chosen
one another from all the world for all
time.
Then came sorrow and suffering and
the gaunt hand of death. On the eve
of the wedding the faithful mother was
stricken with illness and the wedding
was postponed. She grew rapidly worse
and on February ID, the day set for the
ceremony, she passed away. The shock
of her mothers death almost carried
away the bride-tO-be. She withered un-
der it and when at last she began to
recover her health and strength, she
went every day to the cemetery to kneel
uDon the sod which sheltered the NOR
tai remains of her whom she loved so
dearly, and to pray for her eternal hap
piness.
The young man came with her, he
who was ready to cleave to her in sick
ness and death, and, kneeling there on
that green mound it came to them that
if would be fitting they should be we'd
ded there above the mothers grave and
on the anniversary of her death. Thus
if came about that this strange ceremo-
nv was performed in the acre of mourn
ing amid the cleaning headstones and
the weeds of sorrow.
Last Sunday a few friends were bid
den to the wedding, and when they
were assembled at the grave the young
man and the young woman came down
the avenue of bare and leaf1ess trees,
hand in hand.
At the foot of the grave they halt
ed. and the minister, standing in front
of the marble shaft, erected in memory
of the mother, made them man and
wife Thus was the idea of this odd
service carried out. The church was
beautiful Oak Hill cemetery; the lights
were the slanting rays of the sun play
ing hide and seek with the shadows of
the great trees; the flowers were the
loving mementoes placed upon the
mounds of the sleeping dead; the music
was the soft carol of birds and the re-
QUEEN of a gentle wind, and the altar
was a mothers grave
All around the little company were
the graves of the dead; above them
arched the blue sky; the tender charms
of nature were everywhere displayed;
the sounds of priestly prayer and or
phan's sigh. gentle breeze and twitter-
ing birds, mingled in an anthem from
nature to natures God, and the fast de-