Another of my grandfather’s aunts got married in December, 1888. A Christmas wedding took place at the home of Joe Dixon (Sr.) and Grace Shaw Dixon, where all of the girls were married. It is shown both in the listing of marriages and in the local correspondent’s article just to the left. From that article we know that H.O. Etheridge was known as Harry and Hannah Eliza Dixon was known by her middle name, Eliza.
The Etheridge's were also close neighbors. The Etheridge family shows up several places in and near Dixon precinct in early plat maps. It really is striking to see how the lack of transportation, as well as the age of marriage being much younger than is common today (more religion or less birth control... don’t ask your parents!) meant that most people married someone they knew most of their lives. Now it’s not unknown in today’s world to marry someone you’ve known for awhile. After all, I married a high school classmate and we had both turned 18 that summer. Both of our kids married schoolmates (one elementary and one middle school), although in the aftermath of college. But most people today don’t marry someone they’ve known that long. Or do they?
The kicker to this story is that I received an email from a distant relative this summer. This H.O and Eliza Dixon Etheridge are his great grandparents and he wanted to know if he could use some of the information in this blog in a book he is writing about his Etheridge, Shaw and Dixon relatives. His branch of the Etheridge family appears to have moved a couple of towns west early in the next century, but there are still branches of the Etheridge family in Albion today. A phone call I can’t wait to make!
The photo is Eliza Hannah in 1937. Thanks to Gary Whisenhut.
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