Elopement a la 1915

On this date the Pantagraph noted three elopements:

Beulah Fairfield (Fisher, IL) allegedly eloped with Henry Ingold (farmhand) to Joliet. Although this certainly sounds like an exciting event, I am not sure what to make of this announcement. The only Henry Ingold in Champaign County was an established landowner who was 35 years older than the 18 year old Beulah Fairfield. She was the daughter of Edgar and Myrtle Fairfield, farmers, who were both deaf. In 1916 Beulah married John Bateman of Fisher but he died in 1927. In 1940 Beulah was living with her parents again. Her name was Sheppard and she had a daughter named Joann aged 8. Although the census states she was a widow, a newspaper article in 1945 tells about Beulah and Joann's visit to Florida where Merle, her husband, was being released from the service. The record for this family is not always reliable, but elopements with farmhands were probably titillating to read about.

Virginia Schnebly's elopement with C M Kepner was halted in its tracks at the Peoria train station. Virginia's mother did not approve and had Mr. Kepner arrested before they could leave town. Virginia later married three times and acted in California under the name Virginia Caldwell. Between 1916 and 1920 she was married to Arthur B Caldwell in Michigan. She was married to Wesley Heinsch Ruggles (1920 - 1924) in Los Angeles, a movie director best known for his Best Picture Oscar for Cimarron in 1931, and then to Schuyler A Orvis when she lived in New York City. She died in 1950 and never had any children.

Nina Belle Randall of Fithian and J. D. Shreve of St. Joseph were married in St. Louis. The paper noted that Mr. Shreve was 57, and his bride just 20. John Shreve died in 1917, just one year after their daughter Olive was born.