Cousin Linda asked in her comment on "Young Fern" about Grandma Koftan's age when teaching and when she married. I assume some of those postcard photos with her friends, especially the one referring to what she and Leo planned to do, occurred while she was at O'Neill taking some kind of teaching training rather young. I will not testify to this, but I recall a Sacred Heart Academy that trained teachers right after their eighth-grade graduations. So however old Fern was when she finished elementary school is how old she was when she started her education program, as her brother Glen and two sisters, Nellie and Myrtle, did. The latter two had later advanced training because they became career teachers, but I have no memory of where they went for that further training. Nebraska Normal College at Wayne was established in 1891. I do know rural teachers in that age were often barely older than their pupils, which created discipline problems, as might be imagined, especially with farm boys whose education was interrupted by seasonal work so that they didn't finish elementary school until they were 15 or 16 sometimes. And I do know that Gram started teaching very young. The age of 14 sticks like an unhappy burr.
As for her marriage age, red-haired Fern was 19 when she married Laurence on his 23rd birthday. I've scanned some photos of them, including the ones I have with her parents' invitation to a reception, used before. I've also just re-read [Great] Aunt Margaret/Babe Koftan Langhammer's "Memories" of 1988, and she has an interesting paragraph about the occasion: "Laurence also married while we were still in Nebraska. He married Fern Peters. They were married in the Peters' home. It rained that night and I had to sit on her lap. It wasn't very nice on her white satin wedding dress. They were married in Mariaville. Mrs. Peters ran a millinery shop in her home. We went over once for Easter bonnets."
I've always thought these were as close to wedding photos as they had. She does look 19 and he 23.
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