Growing Beyond Their Dreams

The wedding is a custom that has changed greatly over the years, and when compared with the customs of today, one might not recognize the early wedding for what it was.

One thing that has not changed over the years is that a wedding was a very special event.

It needs to be noted that while families were large, there still were not a great number of mates to choose from in the pioneer era. Often the circle of acquaintance was limited to the community around the country school. For this reason, the first hint of love generally resulted in marriage. Establishing a home cost but a little labor and nothing more.

The marriage was always celebrated at the home of the bride, and she generally chose the clergyman. A wedding drew the attention of the entire neighborhood. It was anticipated by both young and old alike.
Everybody in the little communtiy wanted to attend.

On the morning of the wedding, the groom and his closest friends assembled at the home of his father. Men no matter what their age seldom left home before they married. After a great deal of preparation,
the group departed en masse for the “mansion” of his bride. The journey was sometimes made on horseback, sometimes on foot, and sometimes in a farm wagon or cart. It was always a merry journey; and to insure merriment, a bottle often accompanied the entourage.

On reaching the home of the bride, the marriage ceremony took place, and the dinner or supper was served. After the meal dancing commenced that usually lasted until the following morning.

The dances consisted of three and fourhanded reels, square dances and jigs. They always began with a square four; which was followed by what the pioneers called “jigging.” Two of the four would be singled out for a jig. When either of the parties became tired someone else in the company, without interruption of the dance, would take their place. This was referred to as “cutting out.” In this way the reel was often continued until the musician was exhausted.

About 9 or 10 o’clock in the evening a delegation of young ladies would slip the bride away from the group and escort her to the bridal chamber. In doing so, they had to ascend a ladder from the kitchen to the
upper floor, which was often composed of loose boards. Here, the young, simplehearted girl was put to bed by her enthusiastic friends. This done, a similar delegation of young men escorted the groom to the same apartment, and place him snugly by the side of his bride.

All the while, the dance continued. If the seats around the room were scarce, which was generally the case, every young man, when not on the dance floor, was obliged to offer his lap as a seat for one of
the girls; and the offer was sure to be accepted. During the night’s festivities spirits were freely used, but seldom to excess.

These customs continued until after German Immigration brought about some changes.

Herbert Quick accounted what courtship and marriage was like for one of his German neighbors in his autobiography, “One of our neighbors had left in Germany a sweetheart who, he said had promised that she would join him on the farm which he confidently expected to acquire in America. This expectation having been realized, he saved the money for the girl’s passage. The business of being immigrants from Germany to Iowa had grown to be a profitable one, and was in the hands of Germans with talents developed in that direction. To one of these Fred entrusted the money for the girl’s passage. The land and immigration agent went to Germany with the money and returned with a cargo of Germans – and a girl for Fred. He was astonished, he told us, and, I think, strangely put out at first to find that it was not his old girl at all.”

“’It vas dis vay,’ he explained: ‘Ven he got dere mit my money, dis olt girl I hat didn’t vant to come any more. Maype she vas scairt of the water. Maype she hat anodder feller yet. So anodder girl said she’d come. De feller dat hat my money looked at dis new girl, an’ he said, ‘ I dank you’ll do.’ Ven she got here I vas mat, but I looked at her; and after a vile I sait, ‘You’ll do all right’; ant ve got marriet. You see, I hat all dat money in her. She’s a goot worker. She’ll do goot!’”

“Now among us the sentiment of love was scarcely ever mentioned save in the agony of courtship. Such mention involved a concession to sentiment which was extraordinarily difficult. But as the basis of matrimony, the sentiment itself was conclusively presumed to exist. Such a thing as Fred’s matter-of-fact acceptance of the substitute mate, and its failure to be regarded as anything but a good joke on
Fred by his fellow-countrymen among us, had a tendency to set him and them off from us as a different order of beings. Such things are important factors in the process of the assimilation of peoples.”

“As for Fred’s marriage, I do not see how it can be denied that it was a success. He had bought a small tract of what we called inferior land on a contract by which he paid for it by a share of the crop. It was
soon paid for. If babies had been treated as are motorcars now, Fred and his wife would have been obliged to get one more set of license plates every year from that family. And I am informed that, starting with eighty acres of land, Fred has given each of these sons on his coming of age a hundred and sixty acres, and to every daughter a thousand dollars as a wedding present. I regard it as proved that the substitute wife has, as Fred predicted, ‘done pretty goot.’”

The custom of marriages taking place in the home was continued with the Germans. Couples was married in the home of the brides parents, or in some cases the home of the minister. Even after several churches had been established in Steamboat Rock. The first church wedding in Steamboat Rock took place in the 1940’s.