The Wedding of Millicent and Grover

In my previous post, I asked “Why Did Grover & Millicent Go to St. Louis to Marry?” I conjectured about possible reasons they traveled from Louisville to St. Louis to get married. This post is about what we know about their wedding.

Millicent Tschudi & Grover Brown (on their wedding day?)

When I started researching my family history in 1999, my mother told me that her parents were married in St. Louis. I don’t remember much about what I did with that information back then, but I did obtain an uncertified copy of their Application for License to Marry and their Marriage License from the St. Louis City Recorder.

Recently, when I returned to my genealogy research, I was able to add to my findings on their marriage. Below is what I have been able to piece together.

Wedding Day

On August 12, 1941, Millicent Tschudi and Grover Brown went to the St. Louis City Hall to marry. At the time in Missouri an eligible couple could get their marriage license and marry on the same day. I estimate that they were there in the afternoon. This is based on the number of licenses recorded that day (44) and their license was the 38^th granted that day.

Here is what happened that day:

1. They went to the City Recorder of Deeds to apply for a license to marry. On that document they swore that they are of legal age to marry (18 for the bride, 21 for the groom) and they are single or unmarried.

Application for License to Marry ¹

2. The application was approved by the City Recorder and the marriage license was recorded into the Marriage Records book. Only the top portion of the entry was completed before the wedding. The bottom portion was to be completed after the marriage license was returned, indicating that the marriage ceremony was completed.

Entry in the Marriage Records Book ²

3. The City Recorder gave the couple a Marriage License to take to someone who can legally perform the marriage ceremony (“any Judge of a Court of Record or any Justice of the Peace, or any Licensed or Ordained Preacher of the Gospel, who is a citizen of the United States, or who is a resident of and a Pastor of any Church in this State”). In their case, they were married by George M. Murphy (Justice of the Peace, Ninth District) on August 12, 1941, right there at City Hall.

4. After the ceremony, the Justice of the Peace signed the marriage license to certify that he “united in marriage” the couple. The Marriage License then became a Marriage Certificate. They were now married! A copy of the Marriage Certificate was given to the couple for their records.

Marriage Certificate ³

The Rest of the Process

There were still a few more steps to the process that they bride and groom had nothing to do with.

5. The Justice of the Peace returned a copy of the Marriage Certificate to the City Recorder.

6. The City Recorder documented the completion of the marriage in the Marriage Records book. Apparently, this does not immediately, but rather in batches a few times a year. Their marriage license was added to the Marriage Records book on October 3, 1941.

Interesting note: On that day, about 3,000 records were added to the book, all by hand and all signed by two people. They must have had hand cramps that day!

7. Every couple of years, the City Recorder created two indexes of the marriage records, one for the brides and another for the grooms. These indexes listed the brides or grooms alphabetically by last name. The other information provided in the list was: spouse, date of issuing license, license number, the Marriage Records book volume and page number in which the license was recorded. This was done to facilitate locating the marriage records.

They were listed on both indexes:

Marriage Record - Index Female - Book 28 - 1940—41 ⁴

Male Marriage - Book 28 - A—Z - 1940—1941 ⁵

To conclude, we have a lot of evidence to substantiate that Grover and Millicent were married in St. Louis, Missouri on August 12, 1941. But we don’t know why they went to St. Louis to marry or why they eloped.

- Dwayne Wacenske

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¹ St. Louis, Missouri, application for license to marry no. 420965 (12 August 1941), Grover Brown & Millicent Tschudi; City of Saint Louis Recorder of Deeds, St. Louis.

² "Missouri, County Marriage, Naturalization, and Court Records, 1800-1991," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-L98M-Y94P?cc=2060668&wc=Z9M9-RM9%3A352318101%2C1583589502 : accessed 11 May 2022), St. Louis > Marriage licenses 1941 no 418709-426388 > image 201 of 676; Missouri State Archives, Jefferson City.

³ St. Louis, Missouri, marriage certificate no. 420965 (12 August 1941), Grover Brown & Millicent Tschudi; City of Saint Louis Recorder of Deeds, St. Louis.

⁴ "Missouri, County Marriage, Naturalization, and Court Records, 1800-1991," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-998M-RFFS?cc=2060668&wc=ZSPS-VZ9%3A352318101%2C1583592101: accessed 6 August 2022), St. Louis > Marriage records index 1940-1942 female > image 370 of 769; Missouri State Archives, Jefferson City.

⁵ "Missouri, County Marriage, Naturalization, and Court Records, 1800-1991," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-L98Q-YJCQ?cc=2060668&wc=Z3LX-RM9%3A352318101%2C1583591601 : accessed 6 August 2022), St. Louis > Marriage records index 1940-1942 male > image 46 of 770; Missouri State Archives, Jefferson City.