Well, as you know, Joan was married in St. Bartholomew's Church (Episcopal) in New York City Nov. 18 last. She married a William H. (Taft) McGaughey, as you may already know if you read Walter Winchell's column of Nov. 5th, I think it was. "Bill" is a former DePauw boy, a Phi Gam., graduated here about 1932. Was a reporter for the Indianapolis News after leaving school, then to the New York Herald-Tribune, I think it was; then on the Wall Street Journal, and now is Editor of the American Automobile Manufacturers Association Magazine, or some such name. Heretofore it has been edited in New York, but after January 1st next, they move him and the magazine, and Joan, etc., to Detroit, Mich., where the magazine will continue to be published. Therefore, if I understand it right, Joan will lose her job with A.P, and become a housewife—Good Gosh A'mighty!!—Giving up a job like that to become anybody's housewife—I don't care who, or where he comes from—and just when she had struck her stride. Understand I'm not kicking—he's a fine young fellow and alright in every particular, so far as I know and can learn. I'm just thinking out loud. . .
We were all at the wedding—the whole family, including Aunt Margaret, Sarah Jane and her husband. We stayed at the Waldorf- Astoria, just across the street from St. Bartholomew's . . . and otherwise disported ourselves as Russellville blue-bloods. And that reminds me of Aunt Margaret's splurge in the realm of journalism (Aunt Margaret lives at Russellville). Well, when Aunt M. learned Joan was to be married, she wrote Joan a real homey letter about it, including therein a recital of what she did in preparation for her own wedding years and years ago; that she began preparations a year ahead, made towels, spreads, dish cloths, muslin garments (I don't know what she meant by that) etc., saying she had some of them yet and about as good as new. You know the secret, if it was that—Aunt M. tried to "learn" the girls to be economical. . . She went on to say she hoped Joan and her husband would be well and happy, and would try to make home their chief object in life. And so on, in that sort of vein.
What do you suppose Joan did with that letter? She turned it over to another A.P Feature writer, and he sent it out over the whole world about as follows: "A very charming young woman I know here in New York is about to be married. Her old-fashioned aunt out in Russellville, Indiana, wrote her a letter about marriage, which in view of the present day stress and strain and disregard of marriage vows, we think deserves a wider publicity. Here it is." Then he quoted the letter. The Greencastle paper got hold of the release and printed it. Aunt Margaret got hold of the Greencastle paper and almost swooned. When she got to New York for the wedding, she found she was a famous writer and almost swooned again. Then she got sort of tickled and concluded it might make some of these young persons think, and eventually do some good. I have no copy, or I would send it. At the time, I was so busy rigging up my own treasseau, or however you spell it, I didn't take time to save any copy.
I think I should tell you about my wedding-clothes troubles. Joan's was my third wedding. When Sarah Jane married two years ago she wanted an evening wedding at Gobin Memorial Church here. That called for a dress suit for the old man. Mine was of the 1910 vintage. I thought that wasn't so terrible bad, but when I got it separated from the moth balls and camphor, I found that one or the other of them, or both, had tended to shrink it tremendously. Whatever it was seemed to have centered the attack on the waist band of the pants. Then too, some "low comedian" here at the house said the lapels looked like those of an "end man" in a Russellville home talent minstrel, and another said the tails were too short and seemed blunt and worn off, like an old feather duster. Now that couldn't be, because practically the last time I wore it was at my own wedding. I had put a telegram in an inside pocket—and there it was: "Veedersburg, Indiana, November 24, 1910. Sorry we can't be there but we're with you to a man. Congratulations. Fred S. Purnell." Well, we wound up in a one-sided compromise—a new dress suit from Bro. McMurray, 201 Board of Trade Bldg., Indpls, Ind.
Along came Joan wanting a 4 p.m. St. Bartholomew's wedding. That called for a "cut-away." So again I went to interview Bro. McMurray. He was delighted and thoroughly in favor. When I went up for a try-on, while Bro. McMurray was chalk-marking here and there, I took a hurried look in the glass, and Holy Nellie! What I saw took me back instantly to "Old Prince" at Russellville. Old Prince is a 26-year-old faded-out black work horse I own, spavined, two splints and stiff as Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish. In that cutaway, I looked like Old Prince in a set of track harness.
I hope Margaret marries before the Japanese take the country, and that Ann doesn't decide on a grass dress.
Somehow, somewhere, sometime, this family will have to go into a huddle on these wedding signals, or I'm going to find myself with a lot of uniforms—and no clothes. Yours for more clothes and fewer costumes,
RUSSELLVILLE HAS GOOD CREDIT AT THE WALDORF
March 17, 1940
Mr. B. C. Byers
1150 Oakwood Ave.
Dayton, Ohio
My dear B.C.: Well! Well! Well! I'm threatening to do a thing I've been threatening for about a year—write you a letter. . .