The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1913-07-18
Golden Wedding Of MI.
And Mrs. George Phelps,
Wednesday, July 8.

I Friends and Neighbours: We have
gathered today to do honor to two
of Sterling's pioneer citizens, and by
the way real pioneers, those who
have cleared the pathway for the
present progress and civilization are
indeed growing fewer every year.
This is a most suspicious, most
this couple, their fiftieth wedding
anniversary. 1t is also an epoch in
the history of this section of the
county. For half century of gold
en- years they have travelled life's
pathway together, showing that in
some instances marriage is not fail
ure, but on the contrary far from it.
A half century, a half hundred
years, is a long time, longer than
many of us have lived, yet to this
happy pair, whose hair has silvered
with the passing years, it seems but
a short honeymoon. 1t was but as
yesterday that they were wed.
Life is at best but a small book,
but it's pages are compact with many
messages of love and golden memory.
Life is but day at most, for as
Whittier says:
Our lives are albums written through
With good or i'll, with false or true,
And as the blessed angels turn
The pages of our years,
God grant they read the good with
smiles
And blot the i'll with tears"
Golden weddings are notable, yea,
historical events, who among this
large assemblage ever attended or
ever personally knew of diamond
anniversary. Fifty years of welded
life even is not met with frequently,
If memory serves us right this is but
the third such occasion which has
taken place in the town of Sterling
it is therefore right and proper
that the whole countryside should
join in its celebration. All should
, rejoice over the event for we are
fast travelling toward situation
where golden weddings will be even
less frequent unless there comes a
mighty change of sentiment. The
records of the past twelve months
show that of the thousands who have
presented themselves before the altar
of marriage and assumed the vows
! that whom God hath joined together
let no man put asunder," one in
every twelve has sought the divorce
courts. We are truly living in an
era of easy dissolution of the sacred
marriage vows, hence the greater
credit to those who withstand the
temporary storms and trials until the
sunshine of love again beams forth
in most radiant splendor.
AS oyu will learn later on from
the bride of fifty years ago, their
long welded life has not been with
out it's cares, it's worries and it's toll.
Father Phelps has known what it
was to WELD the ak in clearing for
a home. He has swung the scythe
many a day before the advent of the
harvester, that the family might have
bread. Mother Phelps, bless her
sweet life, which has been an inspir.
alton to many young person, has
also known what it is to do with lit
tie, and to make that little go long
ways. She knows from actual ex-
perience how the pioneer mother spun
the yarn to make the family clothing.
They were pioneers in reality and
have walked all the way with prog
ress from the little old spinning
wheel and scythe to the great electric
al age of the telephone and wireless
telegraphy, which can reach the mar
liner upon the seas and apprise him
of approaching danger.
Let us pause for a few brief mo-
ments in this strenuous age of activity
and enterprise and take look back
ward over the space of this married
life, and see if we cannot bring the
view close, nearer our comprehension
Fifty years ago our nation was in the
midst of great turmoil, civil war
, which was to determine whether we
were to exist as a nation or as indi-
vidual states. A struggle to see and
I determine if slavery was to contin.
ue or whether the shackles were to