Tag Archives: Wedding anniversary

100th Anniversary of Ken and Elsie Oliver (just a little late)

22 Saturday Mar 2025

Posted by in Family history, Genealogy

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Engagement photograph of Elsie Mills and Kenneth Oliver, date unknown.

Kenneth Oliver (1898-1975) and Elsie Mills (1899-1993), my grandparents, were married 100 years ago on February 18, 1925 at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyala in Manhattan. Like so many good love stories, theirs had its twists and turns, including the classic “boy-meets-girl;-boy-loses-girl;-boy-gets-girl” plot line. It also had parental obstacles, a rival, and international adventure.

Elsie was the eldest of four children of James Mills, a physician and faculty member at Johns Hopkins University Medical School and his wife Mary (Hill). She studied art at the Maryland Institute in Baltimore, graduating in 1921 as winner of the fine art prize.

Maryland Institute, Baltimore, where Elsie Mills studied art.

Ken graduated from Haverford College in 1920 and arrived in Baltimore later that year to study medicine at Hopkins. He must have studied with his future father-in-law that first year, because the Baltimore Sun reported on July 13, 1921 that James Mills and Kenneth Oliver were sailing to Beirut on July 20th. They visited Ken’s parents at their orphanage near Beirut, returning to Baltimore in October.

From the Baltimore Sun, 13 July, 1921

I don’t know any details of the start or early stages of my grandparents’ romance. Elsie continued her art studies and painting and Ken focused his medical studies, specializing in eye, ear, nose, and throat, his future father-in-law’s specialty. They were probably engaged sometime before the summer of 1921, but James Mills would not allow his daughter to marry Ken until he finished his residency, which was several years off. I imagine they were disappointed, but even my headstrong, free-spirited grandmother would not have disobeyed her father.

James Mills, 1914
Elsie’s father and Ken’s professor at Johns Hopkins University Medical School.

Sometime after their engagement, Ken believed he had tuberculosis. TB was highly contagious and still usually fatal, so he broke off his engagement to Elsie. She spent the summer of 1921 studying art in Woodstock, New York with Leon Kroll, George Bellows, and other major artists.

Leon Kroll, self-portrait, lithograph

Kroll (1884-1974), who had also taught Elsie at the Maryland Institute, seems to have taken a particular interest in her. He worked side by side with her, each completing a portrait of his Haitian maid that summer, and he used Elsie as a model for several of his paintings.

According to my grandmother, Kroll also asked her to marry him that summer after her engagement had been broken off. Fortunately for my grandfather and their descendants, she turned him down in order to stay true to Ken. And in classic romantic movie style, Ken turned out not to have TB, so they reconciled.

During the next several years, Ken continued his medical training and Elsie continued to study, exhibit, and teach art. Elsie’s father, James, died unexpectedly at age 61 on January 2, 1925, and the young couple seems to have wasted no time, marrying just six weeks later.

Left: 116 East 63rd Street, New York, Elsie’s apartment building in February 1925; Right: Brearley School, 60 East 61st Street, New York, where Elsie taught art. Photo credit: Daytonian in Manhattan

At the time of their marriage, Elsie was living in New York at 116 East 63rd Street. She was continuing her art studies and teaching art at the Brearley School, a prestigious private school for girls, located two blocks south at 60 East 61st Street in a building designed by McKim, Mead & White.

I wish it had ever occurred to me to ask my grandparents about their wedding, but it didn’t. The marriage certificate fills in a few details. Given how soon after James Mills’s death they were married, I imagine that it was a very small ceremony. The marriage certificate lists the witnesses as Daniel and A. Douglas Oliver, Ken’s father and elder brother. Daniel Oliver lived in Lebanon, but traveled occasionally to the United States for his work. It is possible that the wedding was the first time Daniel met his new daughter-in-law.

Left: Church of Saint Ignatius Loyola, 980 Park Avenue, New York, Photo credit Allan Marcus.
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Right: Interior, Photo credit Andreas Faessler.
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Ken and Elsie were married at the Church of Saint Ignatius Loyola at 980 Park Avenue in Manhattan. An imposing edifice built from 1895-1900, it was the scene of many high profile occasions such as the funerals of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Lena Horne, Oscar de la Renta, and Mario Cuomo. It was also the filming location for the funeral of Logan Roy, central character in the recent streaming series, Succession.

Following their marriage and a honeymoon in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Ken and Elsie settled back in Baltimore in an apartment on Eutaw Place. Elsie’s newly widowed mother sold the family’s house and moved with her twenty year old son, Jimmy, to an apartment across the street from Ken and Elsie. Ken continued his medical training at Hopkins and Elsie continued to paint. In January 1926 she had a one-woman painting exhibition at the Maryland Institute.

James and Maria (Milnes) Mills

Coincidentally, Elsie and Ken shared their anniversary with Elsie’s paternal grandparents. James Mills (1824-1904) married Maria Milnes (1825-1892) 180 years ago on February 18, 1845 at St. Werburgh’s Church in Derby, England. And the 200th anniversary of Maria’s birth in Gloucester, England just passed on March 19th. So many milestones!

Relationships

James and Maria (Milnes) Mills, 2nd great grandparents

James and Mary (Hill) Mills, great grandparents

Kenneth and Elsie (Mills) Oliver, grandparents

Celia Oliver, mother

Me

65th Anniversary Update: Well THAT Was a Mistake

19 Friday Jun 2020

Posted by in Genealogy, People

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

Celia and Bill at their second wedding on June 16, 1954 and gathered at Bill’s graduation from Johns Hopkins University on June 14, 1955 with (l-r) Aunt Marjorie (Miller) Willbern, Bill’s mother, Jane (Miller) (Stephenson) Hare, Bill, Bill’s step-father, Bob Hare, Celia, and in front is cousin David Willbern.

Today I got a reminder of how easy it is to unwittingly make stuff up in genealogy. Earlier this week I wrote an affectionate little post about my parents’ 65th wedding anniversary. This morning I got a call from my mother, who said, “You’re not going to like this.” And she straightened me right out.

First of all, I had the year wrong. Celia Oliver and Bill Hare (born Stephenson) were married in Wellesley, Massachusetts on June 16, 1954 (not 1955), which was four days after Mum’s college graduation and a year before my Dad’s. Secondly, my aunt and uncle were in fact married in 1955, a year, not a few weeks, after my parents. Thirdly, I left out the part where Mum and Daddy were secretly married in Baltimore a year before their official wedding in Massachusetts.

So what, you say? Well, facts matter. And this story is actually different when it’s correct. And, since I’ve never located a marriage certificate for either the Maryland or Massachusetts marriages, I should have double checked with Mum instead of going on my memory of what I thought she’d told me long ago. And yes, this is the downfall of many a sloppy genealogist!

It was the 1950s. My parents were still in school and they quietly got married in 1953 in Baltimore. They were 19 and 20 years old and they never told their parents. Not ever. According to Mum, “Bill was afraid that because I was a year older I’d take off, and if we got married I wouldn’t.” So they got a marriage license, and one afternoon they rounded up two friends–Vince, a fraternity brother of my Dad’s, and Callie, a classmate of Mum’s–and went to the home of a Justice of the Peace. When it was over, Vince and Callie drove off in one car and Celia and Bill drove off in the other.

Because Mum was a year older than my Dad, they decided to get married when she graduated. They could get an apartment together (it was the ’50s) while she worked through his senior year at Johns Hopkins.

This morning Mum explained that my aunt and uncle traveled from Boston to Baltimore to visit them, the newlyweds, during the year before their own wedding in June 1955, again confirming that my dates were mixed up. So it’s actually my aunt and uncle whose 65th anniversary is this month…

And this solves my burning question as to why Mum would wear a suit to my Dad’s graduation a few days before marrying him in the same suit. What bride would do that?! The answer is that she’d worn the suit at her wedding first, the year before. I’m relieved.

So happy 66th (and 67th) anniversary and double check your facts! xxoo

This post is a participant in the Genealogy Blog Party.

A 65th Anniversary

16 Tuesday Jun 2020

Posted by in People, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

Celia and Bill on June 16, 1955 in Wellesley, Massachusetts

A big, fancy-numbered anniversary. Today is the 65th anniversary of my parents’ wedding.

Celia Oliver and Bill Hare (born Stephenson) met in college in Baltimore in the early 1950s. She was a student at Goucher College and he was at Johns Hopkins University. My Mum was a year older than my Dad, graduating from college in 1954. Their wedding took place soon after his 1955 graduation from Hopkins when he was 21 and she was 22.

It was a small, simple wedding at the house my grandparents were renting on the campus of Dana Hall School on Grove Street in Wellesley, Massachusetts. My mother wore a dark suit with white piping around the collar. It’s the same suit she was wearing in photos of my Dad’s graduation from Hopkins earlier that month.

Present were their parents–Ken and Elsie (Mills) Oliver and Bob and Esther Jane (Miller) Hare from Maryland, with Bob’s mother, Fern, (Bob was actually my Dad’s step-father); Mum’s brother Peter Oliver and soon-to-be sister-in-law, Connie Gibbs; my grandfather’s brother, A. Douglas Oliver from Philadelphia with his wife, Dessa, and two young daughters, Anne and Susan; and finally, my great-uncle, Clark Stephenson, (brother of my dad’s father, Bill Stephenson) with his wife Louise. And must not forget my grandparents’ boxer, Judy, who was an important part of my childhood a few years later!

Top left my grandfather with his old blunderbuss pistol threatens my dad to “make an honest woman” out of his daughter! Top center, Mum’s cousins Anne and Susan Oliver, Dad’s grandmother, Fern Burnham, and my aunt, Connie. Top right, Susan Oliver, unknown minister, Uncle Doug and Aunt Dessa Oliver. And I’ve never asked my mother, but I wonder if my granny–an amazing baker–made the cake.

I love the intimacy of the gathering, the silliness of my Dad hamming it up for the camera while Mum beams, the image of my dignified grandfather being silly. The house isn’t one I ever knew, but everything they’re surrounded by–furniture, hangings, rugs–is embedded in my childhood memories. It was a day filled with joy and promise.

My parents had adventures together during their six short years of marriage before my father’s early death. They drove cross-country to spend a year living in Alaska. They spent a year working in Germany. They had four years as parents together in Baltimore. And a dog. For all that, I celebrate them and look back on that day 65 years ago with gratitude.

UPDATE: Oh, my, did I get this wrong! My next post sorts it all out…

This post is a participant in the Genealogy Blog Party

Happy Anniversary, Daniel and Emily Oliver

19 Monday Sep 2016

Posted by in Genealogy, People, Places

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

img_3771

My great grandparents, Daniel and Emily, have always been the most colorful and compelling characters in my family history. I am lucky to have grown up on their stories, to have photos of them, and to have found a rich trove of their papers. And yet, there are so many unanswered questions…Today I wish them happy anniversary.

Daniel Oliver (1870-1952), an adventurous young Scotsman, left Thurso in Caithness in the northernmost part of the Scottish Highlands when he was a teenager. He was the youngest of three brothers, and came from a family of farm laborers who moved south to work on the docks in Edinburgh after Daniel left Scotland. He travelled to Morocco, where he did missionary work, and then in the early 1890s to Palestine and Beirut, where he studied Arabic. Soon he made his way to Brummana, Syria (now Lebanon), where he taught at the Quaker mission school that was founded there in the 1870s.

What ever possessed him to leave home so young? How did he become a missionary? His family was not particularly religious. What were those years on the road like? Did he travel alone or with companions? And how did a boy from such a modest family grow into such a commanding figure of a man? He didn’t speak to his children or grandchildren of his background. Did he cut off all ties with his family? Why?

Emily Wright (1865-1954) was born in Ackworth, Yorkshire, and was an adventurous young woman in her own right. She was the daughter of  Mary Ann (Deane) and Alfred Wright, a Quaker missionary, and came to Syria with him when she was in her 20s. I don’t know where Alfred went from there, but Emily stayed to teach in Brummana, finding a calling that she would continue for the rest of her long life.

What must it have been like to leave England at 25 and start life on an unfamiliar continent? The school was supported by Quakers from England and the United States. Did she know any of the faculty when she arrived? Were there friends of her father’s? Teachers from home? Did her father stay there with her for long, or did he continue on with his travels soon?

I wish there were letters or clues to Emily and Daniel’s courtship, but I don’t know of any. In my imagination I see two young, idealistic people with a deep commitment to making the world a better place through their faith and their teaching. Daniel was a strong and perhaps blustery man with an iron will and a powerful ambition. Emily was unwavering. She was his partner for sixty years, first at the school in Brummana, where he eventually became principal, and then at the Daniel and Emily Oliver Orphanage and School in nearby Ras el Met’n. There they supported, educated and provided work skills for hundreds of children through two World Wars and beyond.

On September 19, 1895, one hundred twenty-one years ago today, Daniel and Emily were married at the Friends Meetinghouse at Stoke Newington, London. I wish I knew whether they had any family or friends with them that day. With the exception of Emily’s mother, their parents were all still living at the time.  Was Alfred Wright there? Emily was close to her sisters and brothers, so I picture them with her at the meetinghouse. David and Esther Oliver, along with Daniel’s older brothers,  John and David, were living in Edinburgh. Did they make the trip?

2016-09-19-21-42-34

Daniel and Emily had been married for 57 years when Daniel died in 1952. Emily’s death followed in 1954. They had four children, (including my grandfather, Kenneth), seven grandchildren (including my mother, Celia), at least six great grandchildren, and at least twelve great great grandchildren. They also touched the lives of untold numbers of children they taught and cared for during their sixty years in Lebanon.

Daniel’s wedding ring is inscribed D + E   19th Sept. 1895. My husband wears it now with the added inscription KW to LJB 1-2-82.

And a very happy first anniversary today to another Emily–Daniel and Emily’s great great granddaughter–and her husband Matt!