Teens Married; Parents Scolded

Parents have long lamented the “good sense” of their children. Sometimes the fear comes from experience. Their children may not have turned out exactly the way the parents planned. In other cases, the fear is actually a fear of the parents’ own shortcomings. Perhaps the parents doubted they had the good sense to adequately raise a child. Regardless, the good sense of parents and their offspring have been discussed for centuries, described in literature, and shown in motion pictures and television. Today, we have social media to carry on the tradition. In Northeast Texas around the turn of the 20th century, on the other hand, folks tended to put up with each other’s lack of sense. But on occasion, a lack of sense was important enough for newspapers to take notice. Such was the case of the marriage of James Lambert and Ida Taylor in early September 1902.
The Paris Advocate was the first to break the news of James and Ida’s nuptials.
“James Lambeth (sic), aged seventeen years and Miss Ida Taylor, aged fourteen, who lived in the Pee Dee community on the Slate Shoals road, were married a few days ago by Squire Andrews of Powderly. Both of the young folks were under the legal age, but were married with the permission of their parents.”
So it was. There is no question that people married at much younger ages in the early 1900s. The groom was typically anywhere from a few years older than the bride to old enough to be her father. Teenage brides were by no means rare, although Ida Taylor’s age of 14 (actually 2 months shy of 14, so we’ll call it “13 going on 14) was a couple of years younger than normally expected. Such was the need for parental permission. Even Texas law didn’t allow boys and girls to run around marrying each other just because they felt old enough to do so.
When it came to the case of James Lambert and Ida Taylor, however, the newspapers didn’t leave “what was” to “just be.”
On September 5, 1902, the Honey Grove Signal printed a brief editorial comment on the marriage and the law as related to parental consent.
“As stated by the Signal last week, the law relating to marriage should be amended by striking out the clause allowing parents to consent to the marriage of children. Some parents seem to know no more than children and their consent to the marriage of a pair of kids does not lessen the evils of the child-marriage in the least.”
Essentially, we can interpret the editorial as stating that there is no assurance the parents of a teenage boy and the parents of a teenage girl have enough sense between the four of them to provide permission for such a marriage as that of James Lambert and Ida Taylor. Then again, the question must be asked, do newspaper editorialists have good enough sense to document their judgment of a couple of country kids and their parents?
Based on the tone of the articles related to James and Ida Lambert, few would seem to have had confidence the two youngsters marriage would produce anything of much worth. Lambert immediately set to work operating his own farm with Ida by her side. Within a year they had their first child, and a between 1903 and 1922 Ida gave birth to seven children, two dying before reaching adulthood. For the time, those statistics were about par for the course. The couple took up residence in the Atlas-Glory area south of Paris, and to the newspaper editors’ disbelief, they remained married over 40 years — until James’ death from a perforated ulcer in 1943.
The Lambert family seems to have lived a happy life — by no means rich, but reach enough to feed a large family from hard work on a family farm — like most everyone else in Lamar County. A review of The Paris News during their lifetimes reveals little of note. The Lamberts were not active in social circles, politics, or anything else to create much in the way of news. Perhaps, they gained all the attention they wanted in 1902. Still, one item of note did wind up recorded in printer’s ink:

Dateline, Paris, Texas, July 8, 1943, The Paris News

Egg with Inscription Brought to News Office

“J.R. Lambert, who lives on a farm seven miles south of Paris in the Lime Kiln community, was exhibiting an egg Thursday on which appeared the words “God Bless You.” The letters are white.
“The egg, Mr. Lambert says, was found Wednesday in a nest in the hay loft. He and his wife were the only persons about the place he said when asked if it could be possible some one had written or scratched the words on the egg. They have about 100 hens and Mr. Lambert said “I’d give five dollars to know which hen laid that egg.”

Now that we think about it, perhaps those 1902 newspaper commentaries were correct. Sometimes youngsters don’t have good sense, and it’s quite often they inherited the lack of it from their parents. As Marty McFly’s grandfather stated in Back to the Future, “The kid’s an idiot. It comes from upbringing. His parents are probably idiots, too.”
I can’t say I know anything more about the Lambert family, but the 1943 incident shortly before James’ death does give reason to pause. One way or other, you can’t believe everything you read.