Marriage: Willis Edgar Musgrove & Carrie Mae Merritt

On June 13th, 1929, our grandparents - grandpa Willis Edgar and grandma Carrie (known by) Mae (Merritt) Musgrove - married. They rode to the chapel on a horse-drawn wagon.

Grandpa Musgrove and the two oldest boys in the carriage

The ride to their wedding

Just nineteen years old, grandma was a beautiful, if less than beaming, bride that day. She told the story to my mom while at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta just before she died of ovarian cancer on March 12th, 1983. Grandpa Musgrove died almost one year before, on April 24th, 1982.

As grandma (Merritt) Musgrove recalled, grandpa Musgrove didn't want a big wedding. Only his older sister, Zilpha (Musgrove) Merritt, and her older brother, Joe - married to one another - would witness the ceremony. To grandma's surprise, grandpa invited a few of his people.

Mom couldn't say whether grandma found that out at the ceremony or shortly before, but grandma remembered whenever it was.

From Ware County marriage records
filed under page 32

The ride home

They stayed at great aunt Zilpha's and great uncle Joe's house that night. The ceremony was in the afternoon. It was after dark when the horse-drawn wagon arrived home with the newlyweds. They got there first.

Joe and Zilpha
(Musgrove) Merritt

When they went inside the house, grandma said she couldn't see anything; but the place smelled spotless. She remembered thinking that aunt Zilpha must be a good housekeeper. They sat on the couch and waited quietly in the dark until aunt Zilpha and uncle Joe got home.

Willis Edgar and
Carrie 'Mae' (Merritt) Musgrove

As she told it, when her brother and sister-in-law got home, they lit the kerosene lamps, sat down, and talked for a while. Then grandpa Musgrove got up and went to bed, leaving her on the couch with his sister and her brother.

So there it is; a story grandma Musgrove wanted to tell in her last days. It started on a wagon that morning and might have ended on a couch that night. But nine children and many grand and great-grandchildren later, we know for sure; she did go to bed.

Note: Relationships are expressed from the perspective of the grandchildren of Willis Edgar and Carrie (known as) Mae (Merritt) Musgrove. 

Terms of relationship - grandmother, uncle, aunt, cousin, etc.  - are used here generically to include relatives such as fourth great-grandfathers, great grand uncles, second cousins twice removed, etc.