Julius Kruttschnitt, Jr., and his wife, Marie Rose Pickering, married six months ahead of plan, much to the dismay of Pickering’s mother, according to a September 25, 1907 article from the San Francisco Call.
Apparently, the ceremony at the Pickering household, was pulled together so quickly that Kruttschnitt’s parents didn’t even attend. He’s quoted in the paper as having no idea how they will take the news, since he didn’t tell them about the marriage event.
The couple had been engaged for 18 months prior to their hastily called wedding. They had originally planned a two-year engagement, culminating in a wedding that was expected to be “one of the biggest events of the winter.” Instead, the article notes, “the very opposite took place.”
“The young Kruttschnitt dropped into the Fairmount hotel a few days ago,” the article says, “fresh from a surveying trip in the northern copper regions. It was supposed that he had returned to town to taste the joys of civilization for a time, but it develops now that a surprise wedding was the object of the journey.”
None of the couple’s friends attended the ceremony, which was held in the Pickering parlor. Marie was given away by her father, Frederick M. Pickering, who wore a traveling suit of black-and-white checked silk, a picture hat, and a white waist.
Marie’s sister, Rhoda, was supposed to be the maid of honor, but she was away in the mountains and couldn’t attend. The bride and groom were in fact unattended.
Marie, the article says, had been “one of the favorites” of the younger set, since she had debuted two years before. “She is a girl of exceptional beauty, with dark eyes and hair, and a rich brunette coloring….She has made quite a reputation as a writer of short stories and is gifted in music and as a linguist.”
According the article, Marie’s mother, Marie Gingras, announced in unequivocal terms that she did not approve of the marriage being solemnized early instead of at the appointed time in the proper social setting. The bride and groom left immediately for a southern hotel.
Though the marriage appears to be of the shotgun variety, the couple’s first child was born 11 months later.
[…] from the “blacks’ camp.” Marie Pickering went to Australia after her husband, Julius Kruttschnitt, Jr., took a post as general manger of the Mount Isa […]