On November 7, 1881, Jacob Marty and Suzannah Truempler were married. He had been in Minnesota a year, learning how to farm, and she had just arrived from Switzerland, soon to change the spelling of her name to Susanna. He was 26, she was 21. I've never seen their marriage certificate so I don't know any details—only the date was recorded in Susanna's obituary 48 years later.
Earlier that year, Jacob had bought eighty acres of land in Pine County. The next spring, they would buy an adjacent forty with a log cabin from another Swiss named Dan Jenni. For the next thirty years, they would work that land, build a house and barns and sheds, and raise five children.
As each of their children married, Susanna gave them a photo album. This was according to Anna, their youngest, whom I knew. Great-aunt Anna's lacquered album was identical to the one in my own grandparents' house. Both albums contained the portraits you see here, taken no later than 1918, when Jacob died.
Yesterday, November 6, 2010—129 years later—one of Jacob and Susanna's great-great-grandsons, my nephew, was married. Nick and Jenna Marty took their vows at pretty St. Augustine church in South Saint Paul. May their winter be warm, may they have good work in common, and may their lives together be long and happy!
Jacob Marty and Susanna Marty. Photographs from the Marty family album, early 1900s.
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