I have written before about my great-great-grandparents,
David Philip Dean and
Sarah "Jennie" Brattain Dean. I had always wondered how they met. David Philip Dean was born in Iowa, and he lived there until he was an older adult, when most of the family moved to Washington. Jennie, however, was from Indiana. How did they come together? At first, I thought David may have been visiting his mother's brothers, who did have farms in Indiana, but the
Dean family bible made it clear that they were married in Iowa.
Recently, my mother found the original marriage certificate for David and Jennie among my grandmother's documents. One of the witnesses listed is "Jackson Wisehart". Wisehart is Jennie's mother's maiden name. Indeed, her mother, Louisa Wisehart Brattain, had an older brother named Andrew Jackson Wisehart (yes, really). Jackson was married to Hiram Brattain's younger sister, Christena. Hiram Brattain was Louisa's husband and Jennie's father. So, Andrew Jackson Wisehart was Jennie's uncle by birth and by marriage.
So, why was Andrew Jackson Wisehart present at the wedding of David and Jennie? The documents I found for him suggested he was born and died in Indiana. So, I searched further and I found this copy of his obituary:
If you click on it, you'll be able to see it better. Basically, it turns out that Jackson Brattain spent a chunk of time in DesMoines, Iowa, building a business there from 1872-1894, before returning to Indiana. His niece must have visited him and her aunt there, met David, and married him in 1876. I wonder if she was there because her aunt, Christena, was ill and needed some help with her younger children. Sadly, Christena died almost a year to the day after the wedding of her niece.
Mystery solved!
