History is always interesting, but events that are recent enough that eyewitnesses can still give first-hand accounts are especially exciting. For example, here is a picture from the Simmons Studio collection of the reception held on August 22, 1948 after the wedding of Melvin Clay Chamberlain and Lois Faye Ditty. That cute little girl with the cute, long ringlets helping to serve the guests is none other than Martha Louise Baile, a volunteer at the Historical Society and the aunt of the museum’s curator. The woman to her left (with the hat) is her mother, Beulah Mae Baile.
Martha remembers that this reception was held at the home of the bride’s parents, Fay Curtis and Laura Jessie Nicholson Ditty.
I can’t find any information about the groom but Lois Faye was born Nov. 8, 1925 in Carrington, N.D. She attended school in North Dakota but graduated from Leeton High School. She then graduated from the General Hospital School of Nursing in Kansas City in 1948 and became a registered nurse.
Melvin and Lois had a daughter Donna and a son Thomas. They moved from Warrensburg in 1962 to Independence, where she became an antique dealer and owner of the Lois and Sally in Westport in Kansas City. She died on June 15, 2000 and is buried at Warrensburg Memorial Gardens.
The groom, Melvin Chamberlain,worked at the Warrensburg Safeway Store (he might have been the manager).
ReplyDeleteThanks again,Joann. For anyone who doesn't know, that Safeway store, at least I think, was across the street from the Courthouse on the northwest corner. In other words the abandoned county jail house and now only the home of the Johnson County University of Missouri Extension office.
ReplyDeleteMartha is a wonderful, valuable volunteer.
ReplyDelete