FORTY TWO

Old Trunks blogged about the Rosewood Club and their meetings on Saturday nights some time ago. One of the comments had to do with where women met men. Many of the articles regarding weddings in the twenties and thirties shared the bride and groom where from the same geographical area. Perhaps the families knew each other or they met at church or at a club. It was almost shocking to see a wedding write up where someone married someone from Minneapolis! Think about all the war brides from WWII! Let's think about how we generally meet people via a common denominator; high school, college, work, play, and yes, still clubs or churches. Maybe you are a product of a marriage with 'the boy next door', maybe you married someone who's father played with your father. Or maybe you connected via the Internet.


Let's go back 137 years ago and connect through a newspaper editorial.



The Northern Pacific Railroad once hired a minister who was prepared to marry 42 couples in a single ceremony for a nominal fee. All that was needed were 42 brides. Yep, just a matter of 42 brides and he would be ready.


Can you stretch yourself back to 1871? Think about this as you read one of the best numerous wives watered stories in early Minnesota history. Take into consideration these were days when the white population was largely masculine--and tired of being bachelors. Imagine if you will, a collective letter sent to a Norwegian newspaper by 42 young men looking for wives.

Try to imagine this Minneapolis published newspaper called the Minnesota, answered by an equally ardent message signed by 42 Eastern maidens eager to be wives.

The plea for wives published; two weeks later their was a reply. The men were living in a tiny settlement of their own called Northern Pacific, which was situated up in the Red River country. This rich valley had just been tapped by the railroad crossing the state from Duluth to Moorhead and Fargo. The Northern Pacific was inaugurating an extensive advertising and colonization project; hence its interest in the promotion of wedlock.

The Board if Immigration created by the legislature in 1857, backed any proposal to bring marriage 'timber' to Minnesota.

It's easy imagine is the loneliness that impelled 42 hardy young pioneers to write the editor of the Minnesota. Their letter told its own story in mixed pathos ad flamboyance:

The men write: We are three and a half dozen young bachelors, strong and handsome, and every last one of us is looking for a mate to help him make his home a real home and bring joy and happiness into his life...we promise, solemnly, that we will be kind and loving husbands who will take pride and joy in making their future a happy one. Never shall they hear an unkind word or see a sour face, and never shall they regret coming here to share our lot.

They need not worry about where to find a minister, because the Northern Pacific Railroad Company has hired a Norwegian preacher who gives us both comfort and advice and who will, for a nominal fee, wed us all in one ceremony.

The girls wrote back in late January: We have learned all about the young homestead boys who for such a long time have spent their lives in bitter loneliness in the new settlements way out in the wild West, and as they, after all these hardships, still think of us girls back in the old settlements, and as they have now informed us about their homes and their bright futures, we girls have considered and tried to picture the unbounded happiness that would be ours if we could only get our hands on those homestead boys and their nice farms.

The letter goes on to say that none of them have reached 20 years of age and all have golden tresses and rosy cheeks and are all anxious to make good little wives and always strive to enhance the man's happiness. None of then have a desire to become cranky old maids.

Would you be willing to be a bride of an early valley settler? Would you be one of those 42 brides for a mass wedding to a man you never met? Would you believe these fellows all had bright futures and homesteads? What would your golden tresses look like living on the prairie in a soddy? Don't you wonder if these willing women could even imagine the hard work ahead of them? Or would you have the kind of spirit which said, "What an adventure"? Is it like it is Seven Brides for Seven Brothers times 6?

e