Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1901-05-30
He and Miss Rand Now Float in
the Same Canoe.
CEREMONY VERY UNCONVENTIONAL
Sequel to Alsona Divorce and Fore
casted Marriage of Socialist and For-
mer Burlington Woman Comes to
Pass-story of the Affair.

d. Heron and Miss Carrie Rand, the
only daughter of Missed. Rand, of Bur
lington, Iowa, were married at
o'clock Saturday evening in the apart
ments of Charles Brodie Patterson in
the Schuyler, SO West Forty-ffth
street, by the Rev. William Thurston
Brown, pastor of the Plymouth Con-
gregational church of Rochester.
DR.. Heron is the founder of the
New Social Apostolate,' and is a So
cialist of a peculiar type.
His bride and her mother are con-
verts to the gospel he breaches.
The Rev. Mr.. Brown, the officiating
clergyman, is what might be called a
partial convert.
Charles Brodie Patterson is mental
science healer.
DR.. Heron has been living at the
Schuyler for some time. Mrs. Rand lives
at the Hotel Empire. DR.. Heron and
Miss Rand have been thinking of get
ting married for long while, and
since March % there has been no OBJ
stacle to the union. On that day DR..
Herron's first wife got divorce from
him at Algona, Iowa, on the ground of
desertion. The suit was undefended
and the court gave to the wife the
custody Of her four children.
Decides to Marry Miss Rand.
With DR.. Herrons first marriage re-
lation dissolved he and Miss Rand de-
cided on the date of their marriage.
Mr.. Patterson--who is living apart
| from his wife-asked the privilege of
making a wedding party for his
| friends, and it was arranged that the
marriage should take place in his
apartments on the fifth floor The
rooms were decorated with vases OF
| roses.
The bride and her mother drove
down from the Empire reaching the
| Schuyler a few minutes before I
o'clock. The few guests who had been
hidden to the wedding were seated In
the parlors when the bride and bride
groom, each unattended, walked in
There was no wedding march, nothing
to announce their coming. Neither
DR.. Heron nor his bride believes in
conventional marriages.
In speaking of marriage the doctor
once said:
People who love each other, and who
therefore. ought to live with each other
need no laws to bind them together. The
coercive family will pass away with the
coercive economic system. Even when love
exists on the part of one and not on the
4 part of the other there can be no possible
good in the two being kept together by ex
j ternal law.
i Wedding Far From Conventional.
With bride and bridegroom hold
i ing such notions Of marriage their
wedding might be expected to be some
what unconventional. 1t was. When
DIR. Heron and Miss Rand had enter
ed the room the doctor in substance
said:
u My friends, ! have chosen Miss Rand tt
be my companion =
4 Then Miss Rand said:
81 have chosen Mr.. Heron to be m,
4 companion"
That was all there was of the mar
riage ceremony SO far as the parties
4 regard the essentials. That it might
seem more like an ordinary wedding
however, Mr.. Brown arose and said:
II cannot but feel-as all Of us must to
day-the impotence of words fittingly t
4 express or announce to the world tina
1 which this occasion means.
This is the time and place for the musi
of poet, the speech of god; the offic
OF priest or magistrate was an intrusio
here. Better than all would it be II tn
fact of which we are here are consciou
! might be announced to the world in til
; sweet strains of some wordless music.
No Need for Word of Priest.
Nowhere has the religious institution S
, nearly approached the frontiers of vita
; truth as in conceiving marriage to be
sacrament But nowhere has 1t departe
so far from all that is divine and ennot
ling as in supposng that any word O
priest or prelate can be sacramental. Ne
ther statute nor official, civil or religious
can ever create this sacred thing. Neithe
has it the smallest sanction to give to tina
which is sacred. If at all, by the suprem
: fiat of pure and perfect love
1.-The divine Is not in legislature or cour
ell, church or state. 1t abides forever I
human life. Human life alone incarnate
God-and laws and civilization are toert
BILE only in the measure of their recognitio
and service of that life
I'VE are not here to establish a relation
ship which otherwise would not have beef
! We rae not here to inaugurate a marriage
No words of ours or any ones can add
or take from the truth and solemnity
the sublime fact that reciprocal 10y
unites soul to soul by sanction, in pre-
ence of which all human enactments see
|profane and impairment, for this is the 81
preme sacrament of human experienc
There is something about it which tral
sends all other things and procaims il
inherent divinity.
Is Simply an Announcement.
l. a.yNyz H.. @,1, 10 - ~