They were married twice --- just to make sure

Back in January of 1916, Pearl Renshaw Seymour of Salt Lake City and Enoch R. Redborg of Batavia, Illinois, decided to start the new year right by getting hitched. She was a widow; he, a traveling salesman. For reasons lost to time, they decided to meet, one east-bound and the other west, in Chariton to tie the knot.

Protocols were duly followed on Jan. 11, license was obtained and the couple was married; then they turned around, obtained another license and married again. So their union was twice-blessed and is recorded as both No. 5 and No. 6 in the Lucas County register of marriages of that year, only the name of one witness and the officiant differing.

Here's the explanation, taken from the front page of The Chariton Leader of January 13:

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Enoch R. Redborg, whose age is 31 and who resides at Batavia, Ill., by agreement met the widow, Pearl B. Seymour, age 24, of Salt Lake City, Utah, in Chariton, Tuesday, for the purpose of being married. They secured a license at the office of the County Clerk and asked for a Justice of the Peace.

The clerk told them he could secure a minister should they desire, but they preferred the county squire. Justice A.R. Willliams came over and did the job up with neatness and dispatch --- in fact this neatness and dispatch were the means of wrecking domestic tranquility before it had been in the blissful way 20 minutes.

The justice had scarcely signed up the necessary papers before the bride began to appear uneasy in her wedded state and finally she told the clerk that she did not feel satisfied; that the ceremony was so brief she could not realize that she was married.

She wanted to know if they couldn't get another license and have a preacher do it up right according to Ecclesiastes and long metre. The clerk hesitated, doubting his right to issue a second license under the circumstance, but just then Judge D.M. Anderson came into the office and said  it would be all right, so the license was issued and the couple went over to the White Front Hotel and had a real wedding, Rev. E.E. IlgenFritz, officiating, and  pronouncing the blessing. It is to be hoped no further doubts will arise in the mind of the bride.

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That double knot seems to have held. Enoch and Pearl were married for more than 50 years. He died during 1969 and she, in 1971, in California. They are buried together in Whittier.