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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (June 18, 1922)
IllagaEineJetttim VOL. XLI PORTLAND, OREGON, SUNDAY MORNING, JUNE 18, 1922 NO. 25 ''TV i J 8 Hi . . a 7 The Brides, Scorning the Airplane and the Speeding Automobile Marriage as Old Stuff, Promise d to Love, Honor and Obey While the Undertow Was Tugging at Their Ankles A GENTLEMAN conveying the Im pression of biology professor out for, a holiday stood on the steel pier at Atlantic City and with the aid of opera glasses watched a double wedding ceremony being performed in the ocean 100 yards or so beyond. " "Very interesting," he said when it was all over. "A resurgence, I should say, of mankind's amphibian ancestry." None of the people standing near made any answer to that. But one of the brides Could have told the professor a little dif ferently. She could have told him that everybody she had ever known or heard of had got married in a church, and she after giving much thought to the matter had decided to shatter the precedent. The bride in question was Miss Marie Elizabeth O'Keefe of Brooklyn now Mrs. Frank J. Fisher. Clad not in orange blossoms or bridal veil, but in a rubber suit guaranteed to keep her afloat in definitely, she agreed to take Mr. fisher for better or for worse. The wedding party, 14 in all, surrounded her in similar costume. Mayor Edward L. Bader of Atlantic City gave her away, Recorder Clarence L. Goldenberg performed the ceremony, her sister, Miss Margaret O'Keefe, scattered roses on the water andthe wild waves furnished a wedding hymn. In the same party, and at the same time, Miss Emma Cassaday of Phila delphia was married to Howard Detwiler. : "Thrilling? I should say!" declared Mrs. Fisher when she was back on shore. "It was the most thrilling thing that ever happened to me.- In the first place, it was my wedding. But it was more than an ordinary wedding. It was an adventure. For just as we were about to leave the pier I heard somebody say that the un dertow was very strong. This excited mother very much and she begged me not to go through with it. But nothing could have kept me from it then. If I had known that we were going to be swept out to sea I should have gone on." When Mr. Fisher, who works for the General Motors company in New York, be came aware that his bride-to-be yearned for something a little more exciting than the immemorial march to the altar he immediately got busy. Through friends he got in touch with Howard S. Detwiler of Philadelphia, whose marriage to Miss Emma M. Cas 6aday, also of that city, was to take place , rn ti-i v T sf ; at - xs.vj. set W CI IS- ' ' 1 A H V i l ft P fU? ; f - 11- X: The Participants in the Double Wedding Reading From the Left They Are Frank Joseph Fisher and His Bride, 1 fW,: ;iiiPP 1. A v, Mr , A Wet Wedding That Didn't Violate the Volstead Law. Scene Shows the1 Principals in the Nuptials, Including the Mayor and Recorder of Atlantic City, Being Picked Vp by Boats After the Ceremony. No March to the Altar forThem. Instemi of Satin and Lace, These Two Brides Who Are Shown Here mth Their Newly Acquired Husbands, Literally "Took the Plunge" itr Rubber Suits. This Photograph of the Fisher-Detwiler Quartet Was Taken Shortly Befor the Ceremony. In a snort time.! Miss Cassaday, it de veloped, also wanted to get away from the stereotyped orange blossoms and . Mendelssohn affair. Notes were ex changed discussing ways and means. Finally arrangements were made with the Atlantic City hotel exposition whereby the nuptials could take place out in the ocean as a feature of. the show. On the appointed spring day the cou ples, with their attendants, met in Atlan tic City. Mayor Bader agreed to act as parent pro tem to both brides. A rubber company furnished principals and attend ants with non-sinkable life-saving suits and shortly after 4 o'clock the whole party set -off from the steel pier in the face of a light breeze. A sailboat carried them for about 100 yards. Mayor Bader then gave the signal for all to jump overboard. - , ' . .' "You've got to learn to take the plunge together," he said, when there seemed to . be a momentary hesitancy Immediately everybody leaped in. Mrs. John J. O'Keefe, mother of the Brooklyn bride, who was watching from the pier-end, said . her heart jumped Into her throat when they all disappeared beneath the surface. She was afraid they would be swept out - to sea. The party bobbed to the surface one, by , one and at the signal from Mayor Bader, Recorder Goldenberg began the service. Meanwhile small boats of all descriptions ' were circling about them and the pier and the shore were lined with thousands, of watchers. Most of the watchers had to keep marine glasses trained on the wed ding party. . . . . " . " ' Practically everything both couples needed to begin housekeeping was pre sented them, by exhibitors at. the hotel ex position. 5 Fisher, who is 24 years old, served with, distinction in the world war. ' Miss Cassaday and Mr. Detwiler met each other when both were singing in a churoh choir. Their romance extended over sev eral 'years. Both are 20. It developed after the party was safe on dry land that none of the fouf principals could swim. . A Romance Under Water. - '- . ' ' In the case of the Fishers and the Det wilers, their respective romances reached the climax in water. The romance of Mrs. . Helen B. Caswell of Roxbury, Mass., who recently married Eugene Fielding of Bos ton, started under water. Both Mrs. Caswell and her husband are actors' and were, playing in a New York vaudeville theater when they met for the first time a few months ago. Mrs. Cas well's partner in her swimming act was called away for some reason and Fielding, who had some experience as a fancy swimmer, volunteered to take his place. After a while her act began - to go smoothly, and she became aware of Mr. . Fielding as'something more than a work ing partner.' It was: literally. in the hot water, she said, that the realization came to her. that he was reaHy a charming fel- ' low. - ;'-' ;.' Some such a realization . must have -struck Fielding about the same time, for he immediately started improving his ac quaintance with Mrs. Caswell. Their re cent marriage was the result. ' A water wedding which took place in an amusement park .pool in Oklahoma recently has culminated in the trial of the officiating pastor,' Kev. Thomas Irwin of the First Presbyterian church of Law-ton."''- . ; :''-'--' ; " This wedding took place after a rapid- fire wooing conducted by Seldon Ashler : of Amarillo, Tex., and Miss Grace Grahanr of Atlanta, Ga. The two met. in Medicine . park, a resort situated about halt way be tween La wton and Chickasha. " During toe war Medicine park was a frequent visiting place of r soldiers sta tioned a. Camp Donovan, near Fort Sill, and officers at the Fort Sill school of fire. , Mr.' Ashley was one of these and his re cent visit to Medicine, park was the out growth of a, whim that struck him as he was on his way from his home in Texas to Memphis, Tenn. - He forgot all about his mission when he met Miss Graham, After knowing her a week he proposed marriage. She de murred. Finally she yielded, but said that she would have to go home and make the proper preparations. Shortly afterward they both went in bathing with several friends. . Ashley slid face first down a sharply inclined shoot-the-chute, and waited for her to follow. When Miss Graham hit the water Ashley caught her up in his arms. "Let's get married now," he said. "Ridiculous!" she exclaimed. "Let's get married now!" he repeated a little louder. "Ridiculous," she answered a little weaker. . Without further ado Ashley dispatched . a messenger to the hotel nearby and had him bring out the marriage license. Rev. Thomas Irwin, it happened, was already in the water and he immediately agreed to perform the ceremony, which he did forthwith. The conservative element in Rev. Mr. . Irwin's congregation immediately rose np in protest. They had already been greatly incensed over a sermon he had preached over the body of Jake L. Hamon, who was .slain by Clara Hamon, in which the preacher declared that if Hamon didn't , go to heaven nobody would. Charges were accordingly filed against him and he must now stand trial before church commission on the charge ot "wtr , duct uajjecomiug a minister."-