Fearless Females Blog Post: March 4 ~ Harriet and Ross Get Married

I am fortunate to have the marriage records, and some newspaper publicity, of both sets of grandparents. I have written about my paternal grandparents’ Depression wedding in a prior post.

So here are Harriet Cheney Smith (1906-1985) and S. Ross Bustin (1908-1990), my maternal grandparents, married in the late summer of 1930.

I have never heard any stories of how the couple met. From these and other pictures I have of my grandfather, I think he was quite a catch looks-wise. My grandmother, however much “in fashion” she was with her Marcel waves, was cursed with a bad set of teeth, which only dentures would improve in later years.

Although the wedding announcement below says “The wedding will take place in September,” they were married on August 30th. Harriet’s mother had passed away earlier that year, and the couple waited till late summer to marry.

Many of the guests at the above mentioned "card party" remained close friends and bridge partners of my grandmother all her life, and I met several of them in my youth. She was an enthusiastic bridge player, and I still have the finger sandwich bread cutters in the shape of the four card suits: hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades.

The above clipping probably appeared in the afternoon Portland Evening Express for August 30, 1930. My copy was pasted into a scrapbook kept by my great grandmother (Ross' mother), and thus had to scanned with my smartphone. The same is true of the first clipping.

The following is a typical marriage record available from the Office of Vital Records of the State of Maine. They have marriage records back to 1892. Last summer, I visited their offices in Augusta, and paid for a Researcher Card. It's good for a year, and I just send a SASE to them with up to 3 requests (birth, death, or marriage) per week.  Anyone with Maine ancestors should do this.

Lisa Alzo of  The Accidental Genealogist blog is presenting her Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month series in honor of National Women’s History Month.