Petaluma Argus Courier, 3 March 1900
COURTED TO THE WHIR OF SAW MILL WHEELS.
W. H. Joy and Mrs. Weiberts of Healdsburg were married
in Santa Rosa Thursday. The wedding is the outcome of
a long acquaintanceship extending over several years,
both parties spent in the Mill creek redwoods near
Healdsburg.
Years ago Joy was a sawmill owner at Healdsburg. At
that time he was well to do and had a wife and two
daughters. Joy was a hardworking, sober-minded man
while the feminine portion of the house had a leaning
towards social pleasures. As the years went on Joy and
his wife drifted farther and farther apart for no
other reason than that their likes and dislikes were
so widely different.
Mrs. Joy was quite a vocalist and one daughter, Effie
Beresford Joy, achieved fame as a singer which spread
over America, across the Atlantic, to Paris and Berlin.
Miss Effie Beresford Joy is living in Chicago, earning
an independent income as an oratorio and concert singer.
Mrs. Joy and her two daughters, Nellie and Edith, are
living in Los Angeles. The two daughters hold very prominent
positions in the Los Angeles schools.
Mrs. Weiberts, the bride, and Joy, the groom, worked
in the redwoods for several years. After Joy broke up
he became foreman for a Healdsburg sawmill owner and Mrs.
Weiberts was cook for the sawmill crew. They will probably
live on Joy’s little mountain ranch, away back on Mill creek,
one of the most beautiful spots in the entire state.
Mr. and Mrs. Joy on Mill Creek, Healdsburg CA
Bing Map of Healdsburg area
It sounds like a modest but idyllic lifestyle for these two!
What I liked about this wedding announcement is the very blase, even cheerful description of the characters. It used to be quite scandalous for someone to get divorced, let alone remarry, so whoever submitted this announcement seemed to be of the mindset that it was okay.
However, there was no word on whether the new wife is also a divorcee or a widow. If the former, not the latter, I wonder if there was a juicy backstory to the situation that we weren’t told about.
If I’d hazard a guess, she was the cook at the sawmill therefore a widow. After going to a live demonstration day at Stergeon’s sawmill outside of Sebastopol CA a few years ago, I can easily see why it wasn’t a safe livelihood. The “shooting gallery” is the line that the teeth from the big saw blade would “fire” as they broke off, just one of the hazards of many in clearing the cut logs from the mill.
https://www.sturgeonsmill.com/