Sunday, June 22, 2014

DAY 48 - COUNTING DOWN TO THE 50TH

Good Morning, Class of '64
Country Wedding - Anna Mary Robertson, Grandma Moses


Sundays with Larry



Weddings and Serenades

Most weddings then were either in the church parsonage or the home of the bride. Formal church weddings were rare; I can recall only one. Many couples were married in Maryland where no waiting period or blood test was required. I often think of Oakland, Maryland as the wedding capital of West Virginia. Couples usually came back to the bride’s home after the wedding for cake and coffee.


The Honeymoon Breakfast - Daniel Ridgway Knight
There were no honeymoons then, at least not by that name. Most couples took what was called a wedding trip of 2 to 4 days, often to a tourist cabin a few miles away.


Charivari (also known as shivaree) - Unknown
There was always a serenade. In earlier times, and in other places, it was called a shiveree. The idea was to wait until all the lights were out in the bride and groom’s home on their wedding night and to scare the bejeebers out of them. Their friends marched around the house shouting, firing shotguns, ringing cow bells, ringing dinner triangles, and beating pots and pans until the couple came out of the house. Then they had refreshments and tried to stay as long as possible just to tease the couple.

Frontier Life
Good Times: Shivaree
 
Later, serenades were held 2 or 3 weeks after the wedding. The couple was invited to the parents’ home on a ruse. The serenade was supposed to be a surprise, but they all knew what was planned. The noise makers were pretty much the same with the addition of car horns.

Babies-in-washtub - Anne Geddes Photo
Two customs involved the bride and groom being taken for a ride. The men carried the groom around the house 2 or 3 times on a fence rail. If he resisted, the top edge of the rail was carefully sharpened with an ax. Gerald discovered the folly of resisting up close and personal. He ran but was captured in less than 100 yards. The bride was carried the same way by the women in a large wash tub.

 
 
Drinking was another custom. Mason and Adam really tried hard to honor that custom at a serenade. They both got pretty drunk and decided to bottle a nest of hornets in an empty wine bottle. There was a definite relationship between the courage to bottle hornets and that wine bottle being empty.

 
To bottle hornets, press the top of a large empty bottle to the opening of the nest sealing the opening. This must be done at night when all the hornets are in the nest. Then a flashlight is shined through the bottle into the nest while the side of the nest is tapped. The hornets will boil out of the nest into the bottle, and the bottle is capped. There are several obvious risks. One is to make sure the opening is completely sealed by the bottle. Another is to make sure that there is only one opening. Knowing when all the hornets have come out of the nest and capping the bottle before any of them escape is important. Getting the bottle capped quickly and smoothly is vital. Then it is a good idea not to drop the bottle.
 
stir up a hornet's nest
Fig. to create a lot of trouble.
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/stir+up+a+hornet%27s+nest
 
a hornet's nest
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/a+hornet%27s+nest
a situation or subject which causes a lot
of people to become angry and upset
Usage notes: A hornet is a large
insect that stings people badly.
 
 be as mad as a hornet
(American)  
to be very angry
 

They did succeed in getting the hornets sealed in the wine bottle. If they got stung, they didn’t notice until the next morning. They paraded around the guests for an hour or so. They had plenty of room to walk. They were almost as popular as a lady of ill repute at a convention of nuns.
 
A Country Wedding Celebration - Emery Kiss
 Get Me to the Church on Time
Written by Alan Jay Lerner for
the 1956 musical My Fair Lady.
Sung by the cockney character 
Alfred P. Doolittle, a dustman, 
the father of the show's 
main character, Eliza Doolittle
I'm getting married in the morning!
Ding dong! The bells are gonna chime.
Pull out the stopper!
Let's have a whopper!
But get me to the church on time!

Appalachian History Net
http://www.appalachianhistory.net/
Stories, quotes and anecdotes 
from Appalachia, 
with an emphasis on the 
Depression era.
Call your old Plott hound up on the porch, 
fire up your corncob pipe, 
and settle in for a dose of 
Appalachian History.
Appalachian History Weekly 2-10-13
 
The Village Wedding - Sir Samuel Luke Fildes
Getting Hitched
Terry Brandt
http://thelibrary.org/lochist/periodicals/bittersweet/su76c.htm
 
Terms Used for "Getting Married"
catch
join
wed
ally
associate
bond
combine
conjoin
conjugate
contract
espouse
knit
land
link
match
mate
merge
pledge
promise
yoke
Gettin’ hitched
Tie the knot
Get hooked
Take vows
Tie down
Become one
Drop anchor
Get hitched
Get married
Settle down Hitch up
Get spliced
Make one
Get Hitched
Tie the Knot
Jump the Broom
Taking the plunge
Getting hooked up
Lead to the altar
Plight one's troth
Walk down aisle
Buying the cow
Become a couple
To say "I do"
Tie the knot
Jumping the broom
Setting up housekeeping
Another one bites the dust
Hooking up the ball and chain
Taking on the old ball and chain
joining hands in matrimony

A Country Wedding - John Lewis Krimmel
 Making' Whoopee
 First popularized by Eddie Cantor 
in the 1928 musical Whoopee!
Sung by Doris Day and Danny Thomas 
in the movie I'll See You in my Dreams.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makin%27_Whoopee 
Doris Day & Danny Thomas
Another bride
Another June
Another sunny
Honeymoon
Another season
Another reason
For Makin' Whoopee.

The Makin' Whoopee Page
http://www.alscher.priv.at/whoopee/whoopee.html 

 I'll See You in My Dreams (Trailer)
A movie about songwriter Gus Kahn.
Starring Danny Thomas and Doris Day

Shivaree
Country Village Wedding - Wallpaper
Posted by at
Labels: , , ,
Location: West Virginia, USA

1 comment:

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)