Document F.115 · marriage return · transcription: verbatim
Iowa State Board of Health, Return of Marriages, County of Taylor, for the year ending 30 June 1910 — licence no. 58, the entry of Ernest Franklin Cooper and Minnie Belle McMillin. Bound register opening, document 87-1603, certified by the Clerk of the District Court 1 July 1910.
- repository
- Iowa State Board of Health, Return of Marriages — bound register of returns, Taylor County
- identifier
- licence no. 58; document number 87-1603 (top right of each page); 'For the Year Ending June 30, A.D. 1910' (fiscal year July 1909 - June 1910)
- date
- 1910-01-05
What is transcribed: One licence of the twelve on this opening — no. 58 — read in full across both pages, columns 1 to 25. The other eleven (licences 49-57, 59, 60) are not transcribed.
People named
| As written | Role | Identified as | What this document says |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ernest Franklin Cooper | groom | Ernest F Cooper 1887–1978 | residence: 3 Jan 1910, Hutchinson, Kansas occupation: 1910, Farmer |
| Minnie Belle Mc Millin | bride | Minnie Belle (McMillin) Cooper 1886–1942 | residence: 3 Jan 1910, Taylor County, Iowa birth: Taylor County, Iowa |
| Chas. F. Cooper | father | Charles Franklin Cooper 1861–1938 | |
| Nettie Wiley | mother | Catherine Jeanette (Wiley) Cooper 1867–1908 | |
| Abraham Matt McMillin | father | Abraham Matt McMillin 1851–1908 | |
| Bedelia L. Dugan | mother | Bedelia L (Dugan) McMillin 1853 |
What this document records
What it says
Ernest Franklin Cooper of Hutchinson, Kansas, farmer, and Minnie Belle McMillin of Taylor County, Iowa were married at the home of the Rev. S. E. Henry at Bedford, Iowa on 5 January 1910, on a licence issued two days earlier. It is a first marriage for both. It names all four parents, two witnesses and the officiant.
What it does not say
It gives no birth dates — only "age next birthday" for each party, a figure supplied by the applicant. It does not say whether the parents it names were living. And it does not record where the couple went afterwards.
Corrections
This entry's previous reading was made at 2x and two of its values were wrong. Both are corrected here, and the superseded readings are preserved. (1) The licence number is 58, not 59. It is a purple hand-stamp, read at 2x. The title, the source table and every column heading in the old text said "#59"; that number belongs to the NEXT licence on the opening (Jacob E. Brown x Addie F. Sharp). (2) The groom's age next birthday is 25, not 24. Re-read at 8x precisely because it was load-bearing: the old entry reconciled "24" with a birth of Aug 1887 ("age 23 in 1910 -> 24 next birthday "). At 25 that reconciliation fails and the licence instead disagrees with his birth year by about two years. ⇒ The disagreement is recorded at Ernest F Cooper; no birth date anywhere has been changed on the strength of a licence age. (3) Also now read, where the old entry said "pending zoom": the exact date and place of marriage, the officiant, the witnesses, the bride's age and birthplace, and both of the bride's parents.
Transcription and notes
Source
| Element | Value |
|---|---|
| Repository | Iowa State Board of Health, Return of Marriages |
| County | Taylor County, Iowa |
| Document type | Bound register, marriage returns to State Board of Health |
| Filing period | "For the Year Ending June 30, A.D. 1910" (fiscal year July 1909 – June 1910) |
| Document number | 87 - 1603 (top right corner of each page) |
| Licence No. | 58 — this entry previously said #59; see coverage.corrections |
| Clerk's certification | "I Hereby Certify that the above return of Marriages is a correct transcript from the Records in this office." Dated July 1[st], 1910; signature not transcribed |
| On-disk file | (image held in the family archive) (9012 × 6909 px) |
| Capture | Maintainer-supplied 2026-05-16 |
Data from the document [verbatim]
Licence no. 58, read at 2–8× on the full-resolution image (see read_zoom).
Groom side (left page)
| Col | Field | Value |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Licence No. | 58 (purple hand-stamp) |
| 2 | Date of Licence | 1/3 1910 |
| 1 | By whom affidavit is made | Wyatt Johnson |
| 3 | Full Name of Groom | Ernest Franklin Cooper |
| 4 | Place of Residence | Hutchinson Kans. |
| 5 | Occupation | Farmer |
| 6 | Groom's age next birthday | years 25 |
| 7 | Color | White |
| 8 | Race | White |
| 9 | No. of Groom's marriage | First |
| 10 | Groom's place of birth | Hutchinson Kans. |
| 11 | Groom's father's name | Chas. F. Cooper. |
| 12 | Groom's mother's maiden name | Nettie Wiley. |
Bride side (right page)
| Col | Field | Value |
|---|---|---|
| 13 | Full name of bride | Minnie Belle / Mc Millin |
| 14 | Bride's maiden name if a widow | (blank) |
| 15 | Bride's place of residence | Bedford Iowa |
| 16 | Bride's age next birthday | years 24 |
| 17 | Color | White |
| 18 | Race | White |
| 19 | No. of bride's marriage | First |
| 20 | Bride's place of birth | Taylor County |
| 21 | Bride's father's full name | Abraham Matt McMillin |
| 22 | Bride's mother's full maiden name | Bedelia L. Dugan. |
| 23 | Where and when married | at Home of Rev. S.E. Henry, Bedford Iowa, Jan. 5, 1910 |
| 24 | Witnesses | Wyatt Johnson, Jesse Mason. |
| 25 | By whom married, name and office | S. E. Henry - Minister. |
| 1 / 2 (right) | Date of return / when registered | 1/19 1910 / 1/24/10 |
Reading notes
- Wyatt Johnson appears twice — he swore the affidavit for the licence (col. 1) and witnessed the wedding (col. 24). The groom's only son, born 1914, was named Wyatt Wendell Cooper ([p.2266]). The entry records the recurrence; it asserts no connection.
- Married at the minister's house, not a church, and in the bride's county rather than the groom's — he travelled from Kansas to Iowa. The old entry's open question 6 ("Why Iowa?") is answered as far as a licence can answer it: the bride was the local party.
- Two values here disagree with the rest of the catalog, and neither is reconciled in this entry, because an entry records what its document says: the groom's age next birthday 25 (implying b. ≈1885, against Aug 1887 from [D.263] and [J.445]) and his place of birth "Hutchinson Kans." (against "Nickerson, Kan." in his own obituary [J.445]). Both towns are in Reno County. The comparison is argued at [p.30].
Cross-references
- D.796 — the couple's household three months later, with the bride's widowed mother living in it
- D.263 — 1900 Salt Creek, the Charles F. Cooper household, Ernest aged 12
- G.132 — Charles Franklin Cooper Find a Grave wrapper
- People: p.30 · p.2421 · p.28 · p.29 · p.2431 · p.2432
Open follow-ups
- 1920 / 1930 / 1940 / 1950 censuses for Ernest + Minnie — Kansas (Reno) and Iowa (Taylor,
Page, Adams, Ringgold). The 1920, 1925 and 1930 sightings are already recorded as
index-only in [p.30]'s
searches:and have never been opened or filed. - The McMillin family of Taylor Co., Iowa — now has two named people, [p.2431] and [p.2432], and a maiden surname Dugan that is new to this catalog.
- "Minnie B. Mason Cooper" on [G.602] is still unexplained, and this licence makes a prior marriage unavailable as the explanation (col. 19: First). Witness Jesse Mason is a coincidence worth chasing.
- Interpretation relocated to [p.30] on 2026-08-03; this entry holds verbatim content and pointers only.