Oh, Foolish Young Love

My 2nd great-aunt, Elizabeth Jae Kuckert, became the stepmother of four children when she married Jacob Kuckert in Pittsburgh around 1877. One of these stepchildren was Edward G. Kuckert, whose daughter would make front-page news in 1919.

Irene Kuckert was born in 1903 and apparently fell in love with Edward H. Price. Their scheme to marry didn't turn out quite as they had hoped:

The Gazette Times (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), March 22, 1919

I'm assuming the marriage was declared null and void, but I still need to do more digging to find out what happened and if her aunt and suitor were punished. It appears that Irene might have been sent away because the very next year she was working as a housekeeper in East Liverpool, Ohio, even though her parents were still in the Pittsburgh area. 

Dear Irene then quickly fell in love again! In July 1920, she lied about her age to marry a glass worker named Andrew Schneider in Lisbon, Columbiana County, Ohio. The marriage license application showed her age as 20 when she was really only 17. But perhaps the event wasn't scandalous this time since a notice was published in the local newspaper:

East Liverpool Review (Ohio), July 10, 1920

I'm not sure yet what happened to the couple but, by her father's death in 1936, her name was Irene Leonard and she was living in Gary, Indiana. No matter what choices she made during her youth, I hope Irene's life was full of love.