G.M.C. “Cade” Massey
My grandfather, G.M.C. Massey wrote memoirs of his life in rural East Texas about the turn of the 20th Century. Today’s excerpt tells of witnessing a last-minute change of heart that would change a friend’s life.
I have to write as it comes to me so I have just thought of a peculiar circumstance that happened back about the time that I was 19 years of age.
I had been carrying wheat for John Malone’s wheat mill, and had gotten very well acquainted with Jim, his Son, and liked him very well, and according to pre-arrangement I carried some wheat down on Saturday evening, and was to have it ground on Monday, and Jim and I was to run around and get acquainted with some new people, But I found out soon after that one of his old sweethearts was to be married on Sunday evening, and he wanted to go, and so we added that to our other plans, and we went.
And Before we went, He told me that he had gotten negligent, and she had started to going with this other fellow, and he did not pay any further attention, and that he figured that was what it was all about, and that he did not want to get there too early as it might frustrate the affair.
So we just timed ourselves to get there about 5 minutes before the ceremony was to start. And we did just that, And slipped in as quietly as was possible under the circumstances. And soon the preacher announced the wedding ready, and in they marched, and at once the preacher proceeded with the ceremony.
And he used the double ceremony, and when he had finished getting the man married, and started with the ladies part of it and came to the place that she was to say “I do” she did not say it but broke loose from the man, and rushed back into the room from which she had come and throwed herself on the bed sobbing as if her heart would break, And she refused to go on with the ceremony at all. Her mother, the preacher, the Groom-to-be, and everyone else that was interested tried to get her to go on with the wedding. But she was determined and would not. So that was that.
I never heard from that any more for at least 6 months, and Jim and the Lady was married when I was down there next time that we had Wheat to grind. And in after years when I was teaching at Oak grove near there, I met up with Jim, and everything was O.K.
Buller's back porch 