The Fearless Female blog prompts for yesterday and today are:March 4 — Do you have marriage records for your grandparents or great-grandparents? Write a post about where they were married and when. Any family stories about the wedding day? Post a photo too if you have one.
March 5 — How did they meet? You’ve documented marriages, now, go back a bit. Do you know the story of how your parents met? Your grandparents?
I'm going to focus on my paternal grandparents here, specifically my grandmother Elizabeth "Betty" Massmann Pape. In December 1996, she was interviewed for her retirement home's monthly newsletter, so much of this information comes from that.
Betty's friends called her "Chicago Flapper" because she loved to have fun. Growing up, she enjoyed golfing, acting, and being on stage. At the age of 18, she met Paul Pape through a friend. One of their most wonderful dates was when they took a romantic canoe ride on Lake Michigan and he sang "Indian Love Call" (links to original and later lyrics; 1925 instrumental, 1936 movie, and later recorded versions) to her.
Four years after meeting, Betty and Paul were married on September 3, 1924, at St. Jerome Catholic Church in Rogers Park, Illinois, in a beautiful large wedding and reception. They honeymooned in Woodruff, Wisconsin, where, unfortunately, it poured rain the whole time! So they returned to Chicago and enjoyed the shows and dinners out, "but not fishing," Betty said.
The engagement announcement above is from the August 26, 1924, edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune. The wedding photo at right is was taken by Joseph David (J. D.) Toloff (1888-1957) of Evanston, Illinois. Another photo from the wedding is here that includes Paul and his father, John Pape, and Betty and her parents, Frederick and Elizabeth Dienes Massmann, as well as her paternal grandfather (my great-great-grandfather), Carl Massmann.
© Amanda Pape - 2010
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