Go back to Henry and Charlotte.
On a beautiful June evening in 1910, a modern edition of the Sulcer family came into being. The place: the Englewood Baptist Church just off 63rd Street on the south side of Chicago, a large neighborhood church with a distinctive red conical bell tower. The groom was Henry Durham Sulcer, a young advertising writer and recent graduate of the fledgling University of Chicago. He had just returned from a year-long sales position in New York City. Along with his best man and fraternity brother Charlie Kennedy, he waited for his bride to enter.
She arrived. Charlotte Thearle walked down the aisle, resplendent in satin and lace, orange blossoms fixed in her tulle veil, at the side of her father Fred, as a chorus of 100 voices in two combined church choirs filled the church with Wagner’s Bridal Chorus. Of course, with this family, the music for the ceremony had to have been remarkable. After all, Charlotte herself was a music teacher. Her uncles from the music business were in attendance, along with numerous cousins who had made the trip from Wisconsin. The father of the bride – son of one of the founding ministers – was the church’s choir director.
Afterwards the wedding party re-convened back at his house on 66th Street, about a mile away. Charlotte’s mother Nettie Baker Thearle and grandmother Angelica Gear Thearle, and grandmother Mary Jane Durham Sulcer, stood in the receiving line for over a hundred guests.
They took their honeymoon in the Wisconsin Dells, after which they would make their home in nearby Hyde Park, the first Sulcers to do so. They resumed their careers, started a family, and continued the Thearle tradition of spending every summer along the shores of Lake Geneva. Two children would arrive in short order – nicknamed “Hap” and “Teen”. The third, “Sandy”, my father, was still 15 years away. The Sulcer threads of music and creative business were now officially woven together, and that fabric would only grow.
As much as Henry and Charlotte shared – most obviously, music, and perhaps social class – as I research them I notice more and more the striking differences in the origin of their own families, who took very different pathways to reach Chicago at this place and time. It seems that their union, in the heartland of the Midwest, created a new blend that resonates deeply with me.
And yet… I never met them!
As I’ve researched my roots, of all the stories and genealogical facts, it is this couple, more than anything else, that fascinates me and has motivated this exploration – the lens to understand and celebrate the birth of a family.
Go on to learn about young Henry Sulcer.
Sources
- “Miss Thearle to Wed”, Englewood Times, 3 June 1910 and 17 June, 1910;
- 1910 U.S. Census;
- “Wedding is Brilliant”, Riverside Daily Press, 28 June 1910;
- National Climatic Data Center, June 10 1910. No rain, a high of 81F.
- Available at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov on 26 December 2014
