Celebrate Fortieth Wedding Anniversary

COCKLIN, RICE, SNEIDER, KRAHL

Posted By: Judy Kelley, volunteer (email)
Date: 10/17/2010 at 16:51:15

Mr. and Mrs. Clark Cocklin Honored By Gathering

68 RELATIVES PRESENT.

Large Gathering at This Hospitable Home Marks Commemoration of The Noteworthy Event - Big Dinner at Noon Hour - After Dinner a Short Program Was Rendered, With Prayer and Paper Read by Rev. Frye.

A unique anniversary surprise in commemoration of the fortieth anniversary for Mr. and Mrs. Clark Cocklin was planned and carried out by their daughter, relatives and friends last Wednesday, at their home two mile northeast of Grandview. With sixty-eight relatives, neighbors and friends driving into the barnyard this old couple found themselves the object of many and hearty congratulations. When the company had all arrived a most spacious dinner which could be best put in the form of a menu by recopying a complete volume on culinary compositions was served. The company then retired to the front rooms where Rev. Miller of the Evangelical church offered prayer, after which Rev. Ermil Frye of the Methodist church read the following paper which will be of interest to their many friends. It follows: "On this the last day of January 1917, we the friends and relatives of Mr. and Mrs. Clark Cocklin find ourselves thus assembled to do honor to them on this the fortieth anniversary of their married life and if possible link up with this day the 31st day of January in 1877. To this end we are happy for the knowledge of the following: "Mr. Cocklin was born in Pittsburg, Pa., April 14, 1852; Miss Mary Francis Rice in Monmouth, Ill., December 29, 1856. Thus a man from the great Keystone state and without a doubt in possession of a key to a mid-western state, succeded in some wise (details not known) in unlocking the heart of an Illinois maiden.

"Iowa may claim the honor of being the good ground on which this young man and woman met and after the preliminaries customary to such occasions - were married. This was consumated forty years ago today, by Mr. E.B. Lacy, Justice of the Peace, who walked from Grandview in mud knee deep to the farm which to us is known as the Farie Gast home under the bluff. The above named gentleman being delayed by the condition of the roads did not arrive at the seat of the wedding until 8 p.m.

"Mr. and Mrs. Cocklin went to housekeeping in the Fred Westbrook place remaining there five years. From here they moved close to Grandview cemetery living there six years. This might be construed by some of their more superstitious friends to be illominous, permit us to say that they are live ones still. From here they moved to this farm known as Green Hill Springs Farm where they have resided ever since.

"Three children have come to this home, a boy and girl dying in infancy while another daughter, Mrs. Bertha Sneider has lived to spread sunshine around its fireside many years. But a man has to learn that he can not always keep a daughter, with her elastic step, her merry smile and jubilant moods. As he took some man's daughter his daughter was also taken. Grandchildren known to us as Merle and Vera Krahl are here to grace the home of their mother and grandparents.

"With such a grand look in that direction which we are forced to call the past we can only conclude with a forward look into the oncoming years. In these this company here assembled wish for Mr. and Mrs. Cocklin all the joys of the past forty years multiplied and intensified for their future happiness. May they live to celebrate their future happiness. May they live to celebrate next their Golden Wedding."

Source: LCHS scrapbook; newspaper clipping with handwritten date of Jan. 31, 1917