Hannah Simpson Green (d. 1934)

SIMPSON, GREEN, DUTRY

Posted By: D.K.
Date: 9/29/2013 at 14:08:32

Last Of Love Story That Lived 20 Yrs. In Code.
Notes Come In Aunt Hannah’s Death at Olin

Special to the Gazette

OLIN─”The final chapter in the romance of an old-fashioned girl who married her first love after twenty years of correspondence by doe forced up on them by parental objections to the suitor was ended Thursday when funeral services were held for Mrs. Hannah Simpson Green, 84. They were conducted at the United Brethren Church by the Rev. Lloyd Dutry. Burial was in Olin Cemetery beside the grave of B. F. Green, the faithful lover and husband who died in April, 1917.
Nobody knows now why Lawrence A. Simpson, Hale Township farmer, refused to permit the marriage of his daughter, Hannah, and the Green boy, also a resident of Hale Township. Some think he didn’t want her to leave home.

The young people met for the first time at a dance. It was love at first sight. Within a few months a happy Hannah was making her wedding dress. Then arose family opposition. What really happened Aunt Hannah Green, as in later years she was familiarly known to the people of Olin, never fully related. The wedding dress was laid away unused.

B. F. Green, a railroad employee, went to Kansas City. Hannah Simpson remained with her parents. For twenty years they corresponded by code, sending love messages in numerals, the meaning of which is revealed by one of the code books concocted by the girl and [is] now in possession of her cousin, A. A. Cole of Olin. Faithfully caring for her father and mother in their old age Hannah Simpson continued to hold by code the affection of her childhood sweetheart.

Lawrence A. Simpson died in 1889, leaving his daughter alone. Early in the summer of 1891 Hannah left for Kansas City. There, wearing the wedding gown made twenty years before, she was married to B. F. Green. For awhile they resided in Kansas City; then they moved to Oxford Mills, where Mrs. Green owned property. In 1903 they moved to Olin where they had since resided.

A woman of striking personality, but kindly, small and quick moving, Hannah Green wore old-fashioned clothes. Though well-to-do, she would have no modern conveniences in her home. Those who knew the family say Mr. and Mrs. Green were very happy. Aunt Hannah was heartbroken when her husband died. They had been together sixteen years.

Another twenty-seven years elapsed─and then after three months illness, Aunt Hannah Green died on February 14, Valentine’s Day.”