It started with a secret wedding.
On Dec. 13, 1948, Grimes Spillman and Celia Fulkerson eloped at the Methodist parsonage in Ridgway, Missouri. Their marriage wasn’t announced for five months.
A short item appeared on the society page of The Chillicothe Constitution-Tribune on Wednesday, April 13, 1949.
Transcription of the announcement:
Fulkerson-Spillman nuptials announced
Announcements are being received this week of the marriage of Miss Celia Fulkerson, Jamesport, Mo., to Mr. Grimes Spillman, Jamesport, Mo., on Dec. 13, 1948, at the Methodist Parsonage, Ridgeway, Mo., by the Rev. W.H. Ezell.
Miss Fulkerson, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Fulkerson is a graduate of the Trenton High School and Platt-Gard Business University, St. Joseph, Mo., and for the past six years has been employed by the Prudential Insurance Co. in Chillicothe, Mo.
Mr. Spillman is a son of Mr. and Mrs. A.V. Spillman of Jamesport and is a graduate of Jamesport High School. He attended William Jewell College until he entered the Merchant Marines, in which he served two years. He is now in the insurance business in Jamesport.
The couple spent a week’s honeymoon in Phoenix, Ariz.
It wasn’t the first secret wedding
On Jan. 25, 1914, Clarence Fulkerson and Bessie Hoskins — who would become Celia’s parents nine years later — eloped in Grundy County. A newspaper announcement in the Trenton Times published 11 days later under the headline “a sad honeymoon” paints a vivid picture.
A transcription of the wedding announcement:
A sad honeymoon
Friends have just learned of the marriage of Miss Bessie Hazel Hoskins to Mr Clarence Samual Fulkerson on the twenty-fifth of January. Both are young people of near Trenton and the ceremony was performed by Justice F.S Olyer of Brimson.
A great deal of romance is interwoven with this wedding. The bridegroom procured the license on January 13, and during the days intervening (and long before) the bride was being carefully watched by the members of her family to prevent the wedding. Finally on the 25th a sister of the groom succeeded in getting the two young couple together long enough to have the ceremony performed. But again the parents of the bride interfered and although the couple were married they have not been allowed to see each other since the day of the wedding. Mr. and Mrs. Fulkerson are both of age and have been sweethearts for a number of years.
Clarence and Bessie were married until his death in 1953. Grimes and Celia divorced in 2004 after 55 years of marriage.