June 23, 1938
By G. W. S. Ware
This date brings my second marriage to its tenth anniversary. Ten years back of
this date, G. W. S. Ware, of Worthington, Florida, and Mrs. Frances Haralson, of Winder,
Georgia, were married in Atlanta, Georgia, by a civil officer, because rain prevented
going to a pastor. It reined my other marriage day, though forty-seven years were between
them. I struck rain both days, but the rain did not come because I was married, for it was
not that important in the realm of nature. Whoever said: "A rainy day for marriage is
a bad omen," was a false prophet, therefore deserves no notice. However, the sage who
started: "No fool like an old one," hit the mark in most cases of old widowers.
I know the thing by heart, yet I came in a shave of acting it several times. I never saw
one who missed it entirely. I managed, somehow, to marry sensible women, as that was my
intent both times, and I asked the God who ordained marriage for man and wife to guide me,
which was most important. I used the city of Atlanta in both of my marriages. I stopped
off in 1881 to see the Cotton Exposition, then went on to Ringgold and married Miss Kate
F. McCalla, nineteen years of age, and I, twenty-seven. I was debt free, owned 320 acres
of land, plenty to live on and $200 in my pocket, which was a mistake to carry on
one’s person.
Forty-seven years later, or ten years ago, I stopped in the heart of Atlanta and
married Mrs. Haralson, who was fifty-four, and I seventy-four. She had had two marriages
to my one, but I had had forty-five years of married life, and she only five and a half,
at a long interval apart, filled up by teaching school. I had taught school a few terms as
a side line, but she made it her main track, eighteen years. Her last stretch of widowhood
was twelve years, then I broke the spell, and the Lord who is over all, has given us ten
years together.
