2026 - 38 Spent All In One Place

Ed Galloway and Vi Hooten, Friends of Leonard and Elizabeth Nolen

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

2026 - Week 38

Prompt: A Document With Personality 

I wrote about the Galloway/Nolen friendship in blog post 2026-35, A Spot On The Map. While doing research for that story which focused on Totem Pole Park near Foyil, Oklahoma I found a sweet newspaper article about Nathan E. (Ed) Galloway and his bride, Villa (Vi or Villie) Hooten. 

Kansas City Journal (Kansas City, Missouri) Friday, July 15, 1904. 
Click on image for larger view.

Spent All in One Place

“A young gentleman and young lady called at the Boston store yesterday afternoon,” says the Carthage Press, “and said they were going to get married and wished to get a good outfit there. The wish-to-be groom had just bought a good black suit somewhere, but otherwise, bought everything else there. The bride got a complete outfit, dress and all. The groom asked if they could get married there too, as they had no place else to go. He was told that they were more than welcome, and furthermore, that any assistance would be gladly rendered in helping him to get a license and someone to officiate.

“Just then Justice S. I. Barton happened to be passing and was called in. He went with the groom for the license while the bride went back to the store dressing room to make her toilet and put on her new clothes. The groom when he came back primped some too, and then Justice Barton married the two in the presence of the assembled store force and a few from the outside.

“The couple were Nathan E. Galloway, of Scotland, and Villa Hooten, of Catalo, I. T. The groom said he had returned only about three weeks ago from service in the Philippines, and had secured a railroad job at Springfield.”

A marriage license would have given me their names, the date and the place. This newspaper account gave me so much more. I can picture Vi changing into her new wedding clothes in the store dressing room while Ed went for the license—and then Ed returning and “primping some too.”

More than 120 years later, I still smile when I read it. Now that is a document with personality.