In early 1950s, all-hours marriage service made Rockwall a lovers mecca
Spring 2008 Articles
Prolific Texas JP Vermont Officiant for a Day?
In early 1950s, all-hours marriage service made Rockwall a lovers mecca
Most any time, day or night, you could go to Rockwall and get the I Do done. And come they did by the thousands – the love struck, forever-minded and occasionally the alcohol inflamed, flocking for years to what was dubbed the Marriage Mecca.
Those were the days when the state's smallest county was big into full-service, quick turnaround matrimony.
Those were the days before the state law that now makes most people wait at least 72 hours from marriage license to deed. The days before Rockwall County commissioners put an end to this all-hours wedding business.
But in the early 1950s, if you needed a license at midnight or 3 a.m., Gene Payne, a courthouse night watchman and deputy county clerk, would sell you one for $2.50. If you needed a state-required blood test, Dr. Sherman Sparks or other physicians were there to oblige.
Then you would go see Justice of the Peace Mildred "Mickey" Barnes, drive to her house on Glenn Street and make it all official.
"That was how she clothed and fed her [two] children," said Beverly Mummey, the late judge's daughter.
Appointed to replace her husband after his death in March 1952, she went on to be elected and serve 14 years, dealing with traffic tickets, low-dollar disputes and other official duties – while, like most JPs, performing marriages for extra income.
Ministers and then Rockwall County Judge Ralph Hall, now the longtime Texas congressman, took a share of the action. And after uniting Robert Gene Tumey and Katherine Imogene Clowers on April 18, 1952, Ms. Barnes went on to marry thousands of other couples at both her office and Rockwall home.
"We had a living room that the kids were not allowed to go into because it was for her weddings," Ms. Mummey recalled.
Herschel Jimerson and Vennes Curlin ... Billy R. Mullinix and Gladys Shastid ... Albert Phillip Eurbin and Clemon Tiney Russ ... Ralph C. Stephen and Jeanell Mills. Where are they and all the others now? How long did those marriages last?
In her first two years alone, Ms. Barnes witnessed more than 2,000 unions, handling 14, for example, on May 2, 1953.
A lighted sign in the judge's front yard helped guide the way, and "people would come in the middle of the night," her daughter said.
Judges set their own marriage fees, but Ms. Barnes let her clients pay what they could or would, money that supplemented her county salary that by 1965 had ballooned to $1,116 a year.
"I accept whatever they want to give," she said in a 1954 story in The Dallas Morning News. "Sometimes it is as low as 50 cents, and I have taken a number of checks that turned out to be hot."
The 72-hour waiting period didn't become law until 1987, four years after the blood test was dropped. In the 1950s, Texas men under 21 and girls under 18 supposedly needed parental approval to get a marriage license. Now most people under 18 need consent.
"I have had mothers write me awful letters after I had married their daughters," Ms. Barnes recalled in the News story. "But if the license is in order and the two persons are not drunk I marry them."
Perhaps one of those "awful" letters was the one penned by Mrs. J.P. Thomas of Dallas. In correspondence delivered without a street address to The Lady Justice of the Peace Rock Wall Texas, she took issue with Ms. Barnes' marriage of her 16-year-old daughter Judy Thomas to C.H. Parsons on March 14, 1953. For example, she wrote:
"I do hope that God puts forgiveness in my heart for the way I feel toward you.
... You also know that most people are civilized citizens and expect their children to have decent weddings when they are of a marriageable age.
...The damage is done to my child but please think carefully before you cause the same kind of misery to some one else."
Concerns about underage marriages and alcoholic flings were alive in Rockwall as well. County commissioners in June 1953 rejected a request to issue marriage licenses only between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. But they went on to ask doctors, ministers and judges to keep the intoxicated from tying the knot.
In early 1955, they ended the after-hours sales at the urging of County Clerk Derwood Wimpee.
"I remember him saying it was hard on his conscience, running into mothers and fathers of kids who had eloped," said his son, Rockwall County Commissioner Jerry Wimpee. "His view was the practice of the clerk's office didn't honor holy matrimony."
The curtailing of marriage services and slowing of its cash flow irritated some. And it pushed Judge Barnes toward a new career: hairdressing.
"She went to beauty school and became a beautician," her daughter said. "She couldn't make enough money."
After declining to seek re-election and leaving office in 1966, the Marrying Machine went from wedlocks to hair locks at her Hairdresser Beauty Salon in Rockwall. She died in 2004.
"She was a delightful woman who served her community," said Sheri Fowler, a local historian.
"Whether you look at it as a positive or a negative, it certainly did differentiate Rockwall from the surrounding area."
MONTPELIER – Vermonters may soon be able to have their
favorite aunt or uncle officiate at their wedding and civil
union ceremonies.
Secretary of State Deb Markowitz has proposed changing state
law to allow people to become a ceremony officiate for a day,
thereby allowing couples in love the opportunity to have a
family member or friend oversee their ceremony.
Vermont law only allows clergy, judges and justices of the
peace to perform wedding and civil union ceremonies, but
Markowitz said her office receives hundreds of phone calls
each year from future brides and grooms inquiring if a friend
or family member could "become a JP for a day."
"We have to tell them, 'sorry, you're out of luck,'" Markowitz
told members of the Senate Government Operations Committee on
Tuesday. "We advise them to find a JP that can sit in on the
wedding and sign the certificate when it is done."
Instead, Markowitz has proposed changing the law to allow a
person to become a wedding and civil union officiate for a
day. A little paperwork and a proposed $25 fee would allow a
person to oversee the specific ceremony.
"This may seem like a very small thing," she told the
lawmakers. "But it affects a lot of people in a very important
way."
Markowitz also raised two problems with how Vermont now
decides who can oversee wedding and civil union ceremonies.
There is a trend of Vermonters running for justice of the
peace in their communities – an elected position that usually
sees little competition on the ballot – simply to perform a
ceremony, she said.
These justices of the peace have no interest in the position's
other important duties, she explained, such as reviewing voter
checklists and serving on their town's board for abatement of
taxes.
"They don't show up to help with elections," she said. "They
don't help with property tax issues."
The second concern is the growing trend of online ministries,
which can sanction a person as a member of the clergy, thereby
allowing them to oversee the ceremonies. But Markowitz said it
is not clear yet if the state legally recognizes these
churches and she suggested that only a court case could clear
up that issue.
Luckily, Markowitz said, if a court ever ruled that these
clergy from Internet churches cannot oversee wedding or civil
union ceremonies, the unions they oversaw would still be
valid.
Alison Kaiser, the Stowe town clerk and the legislative
communications chairwoman for the Vermont Municipal Clerks and
Treasurers Association, said clerks across the state receive
similar calls from people hoping to have a non-justice of the
peace officiate at their ceremonies.
She and other clerks usually suggest they hire a justice of
the peace to be present at the wedding to sign the necessary
paperwork, but still have the person of their choosing perform
the marriage or civil union ceremony.
"It's a lot more meaningful when they can have what they
want," Kaiser told the lawmakers.
There are more than 1,800 justices of the peace in Vermont,
and while many advertise their ceremony-performing duties, few
probably make a living at it, according to Carla Payne of West
Danville, who has been one for three years.
The possible change in law was news to her, she said.
"I'll have to think about this before I make up my mind about
it," she said. "But I don't think there are any JPs in the
state who do this frequently enough to make a living of it."
If made into law, the proposal would bring the total
administrative cost of getting married in Vermont, assuming
one does have a family member or friend become an officiate
for a day, to about $48 (this includes the $23 fee for a
marriage license).
"Compared to the rest of the wedding, that is affordable,"
joked Sen. George Coppenrath, R-Caledonia, a member of the
Senate Government Operations Committee.
Contact Daniel Barlow at
Daniel.Barlow@rutlandherald.com.