Sweets for the Sweet, Horace (1869-1947) and Delia (Spaulding) Watson (1868-1955), Co-Ancestor No. 26

Once upon a time, there were three youngsters. Horace, a boy in Oakland, California; Delia, a girl in Ionia, Michigan; and third, a mutual friend of the two. The friend asked the boy to send to the girl a box of candy on his behalf. The boy indeed did send the box, but he sent it with his own card enclosed, rather than the friend’s.

The candy box started a correspondence some two years in duration.  At that point, the two met face-to-face, fell in love, and were married some eight months later. This sweet story was recounted in an Oakland newspaper article on the occasion of the couple’s 50^th Wedding Anniversary in May 1943.

What’s odd is that these two kids, some 2000 miles apart, were related! (If only by marriage.) Horace’s aunt Elisabeth (Watson) Spaulding – his father’s sister – was married to Delia’s uncle Day Spaulding – her father’s brother.

There’s no way they couldn’t have known this, obviously. (Delia especially – since she had grown up near Elisabeth & Day.) And since it would be far too incredible for some random third party to unwittingly introduce two family members to one another, it’s my guess that the “friend” was someone’s cousin.