Looking Back, May 29

90 years ago

On May 29, 1925, a Friday, The Daily Register ran a front-page story about two couples who were to be wed in an airplane.

"Marriages are to take place 'above the clouds'" was the headline of the story about two Harrisburg couples who would be married in an airplane owned by the Perkins Flying Circus. At the time when commercial flights were still a novelty, an aerial wedding was quite the spectacle.

"As far as is known by local people, there have been only two couples married in an airplane in the United States, and both those weddings were on widely separate dates. The two weddings to take place in the plane owned by (the circus) will therefore break all records for winged matrimony and will flash the name of the city of Harrisburg from one end of the country to the other."

Married on the plane were Eddie Holloway and Miss Mildred Womach, and William P. Brown and Bessie Lee Smith. Rev. J.E. Jupin, the Christian minister performed the marriage ceremony, and the plane was flown by "one of the most trusted and reliable flyers that was in service during the World war," Captain Frank Dunn.

75 years ago

On May 29, 1940, a Wednesday, The Daily Register ran a story about a $574.25 donation to the Red Cross War Relief Drive from Saline County residents. The entire front page, and many of the pages on the edition's interior, covered news from World War II, which was in full swing in 1940.

The story said the county's goal was $1,000. Businesses and individuals alike donated to the cause. Donations rolled in from the Grand theater, the Orpheum theater, Pickford Flower Shop, the Abney and Gram Paint and Wallpaper store, Clark-Hawkins Hardware, Wilson Tire Shop, Grant Jewelry Co., the Social Security office, Gildebuam Furniture Store, the R.D. Brown Engineering office and the Illinois Commercial Telephone Company's office, among others.