Thomas married Barbara Ann BOUTALL. Barbara (daughter of Herbert David BOUTALL and Flora Evelyn Ann MAY) was born on 13 May 1940 in Athol, Worcester, Massachusetts; died on 26 Oct 1969 in Athol, Worcester, Massachusetts; was buried in Highland Cemetery, Athol, Worcester, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Census: 1950, Petersham, Worcester, Massachusetts

Other Events and Attributes:

• Census: 1930, Athol, Worcester, Massachusetts
• Census: 1940, Athol, Worcester, Massachusetts

Herbert married Flora Evelyn Ann MAY on 12 Jul 1938 in Athol, Worcester, Massachusetts. Flora (daughter of Edwin Nathan MAY and Pearl Esther PALMER) was born on 1 Jul 1922 in Athol, Worcester, Massachusetts; died on 6 Aug 2001 in Greenfield, Franklin, Massachusetts; was buried in East Street Cemetery, Petersham, Worcester, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Census: 1930, Queens, New York, New York
• Census: 1940, Athol, Worcester, Massachusetts
• Census: 1950, Petersham, Worcester, Massachusetts

Notes:

From Indiana Evening Gazette, July 12, 1938
Clean Up Chores Get Married
ATHOL, Mass., July 12 – (AP) – Herbert David Boutall, 63, poultry farmer, and his 16-year old bride spent their first day of married live today at work.
 Boutall, a widower of two years, and Flora Evely Anna May, were married at St. John’s Episcopal Church last night because the Mays, farmers all, insisted they had to clean up their farm chores before donning wedding togs. Previously and afternoon ceremony had been planned.
More than 2,000 persons waited outside the church for a glimpse of the bridal party. The ceremony wiltnessed by 100 guests.

From The St Petersburg Times, Wednesday, July 13, 1938
December and May Wedding Attracts Throng of 2,000
ATHOL, Mass., July 12 — (AP) – While a crowd of 2,000 sought a glimpse of a wedding ceremony held at night because the bridal party couldn’t take time off from their farm chores for a day service, Herberd David Boutall, 63-year-old widower, tonight married his 16-year-old sweetheart, Flora Evelyn Anna May.
 The church ceremony was witnessed by 100 persons, including a number of standees in rear pews, and several policemen, who kept outsiders from opening windows and peering in. A wedding reception was held at Boutall’s farm house. Boutall, busy with 200 hens, is not planning a wedding trip in the near future.

From The New York Age, July 16, 1938.
Hot Weather Item!, by Benezer Bay.
 An Athol, Massachusetts, dispatch of Thursday last told of the proposed marriage of a 63-year-old widower and a 16-year-old girl of that burg. One newspaper carried a picture of the elederly Romeo lifting his youthful bride-to-be, just to show his retained strength.
 “The only ones in the neighborhood who object to the marriage,” he is reported as saying, “are a couple of old maids who think I should marry someone nearer my own age.” “My answer to them,” continued the prospective groom, “is that when I buy a piano, I don’t want an antique, I want one that plays.”
 Boutall, as is said to be his name, should be careful about making assertions about purchasing antiques. His young bride might awaken some fine morning to realize that she has done just that.

From The Amsterdam Evening Recorder, N.Y., Tuesday, July 11, 1939.
Bridegroom of 64 Who Wed Girl 16 Confounds Critics
ATHOL, Mass., Jull 11 – (AP) – Herbert D. Boutall, the 64-year-old Athol chicken farmer who took a 16-year-old wife juste a year ago, looked back with pleasure today on a “happy year” and laughed at the critics who predicted the May-December romance would go on the rocks.
 His pretty, brunette bride, Flora Evelyn Anna, who turned 17 on July 1, agreed and chuckled as Boutall praised her ability as a cook, a thrifty manager and a maker of “wonderful home brew”.
 Boutall, who runs a small egg route, recalled with a grin the “crank letter writers” who told him after the marriage to “leave the chickens alone and take care of the hens”. “The happy year we have had,” and he smiled at his wife, attired in flowered shorts and jacket, “simply proves that we meant marriage in every sense of the word whe we applied for a license a year ago. We knew then that it wasn’t fascination on the part of one and infatuation on the part of the other.”

From The Lewiston Daily Sun 14 apr, 1943
Boutall will not return to England
Athol Man, 68, Who Wed Girl, 20, Gets Probation for Non-Support
ATHOL, Mass., April 13 – AP – Herbert D. Boutall, 68 who announced on Saturday that his marriage to the former Ann Evelyn May, 20, was on the rocks after five years, will not go to his native England as he had planned.
He was under two years probation today after being convicted of non-support of two children, for whos keep he was ordered to pay $12 a week.
 The May-December romance began when Ann left school to become Boutall’s housekeeper two years after his first wife died. Two children were born to them, Barbara Ann 3, and David, 2. Mrs. Boutall and the children live here with her mother while Boutall works and lives in nearby Orange. On Saturday he said he soon would return to his native England to take a war job.

From the blog My Father’s posts dedicated to Ebenezer Ray :
A Piano Lesson ?
 Before there was Rupert Murdoch and Wendi, his pie-spiking wife; before the celebrity sphere was all a twitter about 51-year-old actor Doug Hutchison marrying a reportedly 16-year-old Courtney Stodden, there was Herbert David Boutall, 63, and his 16-year-old bride, Ann
 Dubbed a “hot weather item,” in my father’s column on July 16, 1938, the item wasn’t about the temperatures at all. It was about a May-December romance that made headlines across the nation.
 “Both of the characters in this February-December drama are white, but what of it?” my father wrote. “One newspaper carried a picture of the elderly Romeo lifting his youthful bride-to-be, just to show his retained strength.“
 Boutall, a widower from Athol, Mass. is quoted as saying: “The only ones in the neighborhood who object to the marriage are a couple of old maids who think I should marry someone nearer my own age. My answer to them is that when I buy a piano I don’t want an antique. I want one that plays.”
 “Boutall should be careful about making assertions about purchasing antiques,” Ebenezer wrote. “His young bride might awaken some fine morning to realize that she has done just that.”
 In hindsight, Ebenezer might have taken his own advice about making assertions. Ten years later, he would end up in his own May-December romance. My mother, certainly no child, was only 22 years my father’s junior, which doesn’t come close to the Boutalls’ 47-year age difference. Still, it’s a reminder that you never know when your own words will come back to bite you, especially when you are talking about “old” people.
 I followed the Boutall marriage in the archives of the Boston Globe. More than 5000 spectators lined the streets for the wedding on July 11, 1938. The church only seated 120. In August, a subsequent Globe article intimated that the couple was thinking of selling their New England farm and moving to England, where Herbert was from. A year later, they were still in Athol, according to the Globe headline: “Farmer, 64, wife 17, will mark first year of marital bliss today.”
 Then in May 1940, the Globe announced that the “May–December couple proud parents of a girl.” They had a son the next June, but, alas, on April 10, 1943, the Globe announced, “Gap of 47 years too much for Athol pair, so they’ve separated.”
 The paper quoted Herbert as saying, “If she wants a younger man she can have one.” According to that Globe article, Herbert was headed to England to work in a war plant. His wife and children moved back in with her parents.
 Perhaps she got a new piano.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Census: 1910, Petersham, Worcester, Massachusetts
• Census: 1930, Queens, New York, New York

Edwin married Pearl Esther PALMER on 7 Aug 1907 in Petersham, Worcester, Massachusetts. Pearl (daughter of George Oliver PALMER and Seraphina Skinner COES) was born on 24 May 1889 in Whites Cove, Queens, New Brunswick; died in 1967 in Worcester, Massachusetts; was buried in Greenlawn Cemetery, Templeton, Worcester, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Census: 1901, Sunbury & Queens, New Brunswick
• Immigration: 1906
• Census: 1910, Petersham, Worcester, Massachusetts
• Census: 1930, Queens, New York, New York