The Courtship and Marriage of Charles Kenyon and Harriet Shookman

 

Charles Kenyon and Harriet Shookman may have met each other at any time after her family moved to the Town of Grant, Monroe County, Wisconsin in 1905.  Harriet's parents, Samuel and Dora (Manley) Shookman settled and farmed near Rudd's Mill, which was a train station named after a lumber mill of the time.  Family stories tell that Charles took out Harriet's oldest sister, Lura, before starting to court Harriet.  Charles may have dated Lura when she was teaching at the Pine Grove School during the school year of 1911-12, or in 1912-13 when she was teaching at the Union Valley School.  Both were neighboring communities with ample opportunity for socializing and paths to cross.  

Harriet and her sisters, Lura and Ina, had worked in the Arizona Territory at the Ingleside resort the winter of 1910-1911 and returned to Monroe County sometime in the following spring as Hattie taught in New Lyme the following school year 1911-1912 and attended the Teacher's Institute in nearby Sparta during the summer of 1912. 

Harriet signed a contract to start teaching at Purdy Valley School in September 1912 when she was 17 and taught through the next May. Hattie and Charley would have had many opportunities to get to know each other at this time as the school grounds sat on land adjacent to Charles' father, Louis Kenyon's family farm.  .  

This photo was taken in a studio in Black River Falls on 2 October 1913.  Left to right are Charles Kenyon, Harold Hart, Harriet Shookman, possibly Vonnie Vandervort, and Ina Shookman.  Vonnie was Charles' first cousin and Ina was Harriet's sister.   At the time of the photo, Hattie would have been 18 and Charley, 23.   

At some point, shortly after this photo was taken, Hattie and her sister, Ina, returned to Arizona to work the winter season at Ingleside resort.  While in Arizona, Harriet took, and passed, the exam to teach in Maricopa County on 1 Dec 1913, likely with the idea of staying there to teach.  Something obviously changed her mind, as she returned to Tomah before August of 1914 when she sat for the exam to be recertified as a teacher in Monroe County, Wisconsin and went on to teach that fall at the Purdy Valley School.  Charley continued courting Harriet and not too many months later they were engaged to be married.

This picture is believed to have been an engagement photo of Charles and Harriet, 

taken circa summer 1915

Wedding Photo of Charles and Harriet, probably taken the day of their wedding, 

Wednesday, October 6, 1915. 

The beautiful marriage certificate was signed by Urbane. E. Gibson, Pastor of the Baptist Church at Warrens, Wisconsin, and witnesses to the marriage were Laurel Vandervort, first cousin to the groom and Ina Shookman, sister of the bride. 

Samuel and Dora (Manley) Shookman announced the marriage of their daughter, Harriet to Charles with a formal announcement.

The happy couple departed for a wedding trip to Duluth, Minnesota following their wedding and returned a week later on October 13th.   They moved temporarily into Otis Purdy's house, another of Charley's many cousins, who lived down the road in Purdy Valley not far from the home Charley had grown up in.   Their friends threw a "parcel shower" to celebrate the wedding, similar to a modern reception, which was largely attended.  

Tomah Monitor, 22 October 1915, p.8, col.4

Charley had started building a house in Purdy Valley prior to his marriage to Hattie, and they probably moved in late in the fall 1915.  Their first child, Doris was born in this house the following July.

Note: Charles Kenyon (1889-1963) and Harriet Shookman (1895-1969) are my maternal grandparents. 

© Karla Von Fumetti Staudt

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