JAP WEDS ARCHDEACON'S DAUGHTER
MARRIED BY DR. GOWEN OF TRINITY CHURCH
Brown Man's White Bride And His Mother-in-Law
[Photo caption]: Mrs. Gunjiro Aoki and Mrs. John Emery.
WHITE AND BROWN ARE JOINED
Helen Gladys Emery, Daughter of Episcopal Clergyman, Married Today to Gunjiro Aoki, Former House Servant.
CEREMONY PERFORMED AT TRINITY CHURCH
Loving Pair, Accompanied by Bride's Parents, Travel 1,000 Miles to Plight Their Troth at Christian Altar.
APPLICATION FOR MARRIAGE LICENSE.
Seattle, Wash., March 27, 1909.
To the Auditor of King County, Wash.
Application is hereby made for a marriage/license for the following named persons.
Name in full of groom -- Gunjiro Aoki, aged 25 years; residence, 519 Seventh Street, Oakland, Cal.
Name in full of bride -- Miss Helen Gladys Emery, aged 21 years; residence Corte Madera, Cal.
Applied for by Gunjiro Aoki.
J.W. SUNADA, Witness.
OATH.
Do you solemnly swear that you are acquainted with parties and know them to be of legal age, over the ages of 21 and 18 years respectively, and that they are not relatives, and that they are not relatives, and that they have not been married or divorced in this state within the last six months.
Signed: J.W. SUNADA
Subscribed and sworn to before me this 27th day of March, 1909.
C.F. GAGE,
Deputy Auditor, King County.
State of Washington.
This affidavit filed and license issued March 27, 1909.
OTTO A. CASE, County Auditor.
By C.F. GAGE, Deputy.
No. 23414.
MARRIAGE LICENSE.
State of Washington, County of King.
To any person legally authorized to solemnize marriage, Greeting:
You are hereby authorized to join as husband and wife in the holy bonds of matrimony, Gunjiro Aoki of Oakland, Cal., and Helen Gladys Emery of Corte Madera, Cal., and you are hereby required by law to make a return of such marriage to the county clerk of the county wherein the ceremony is performed within three months thereafter.
Witness, my hand and official seal this 27th day of March, A.D. 1909.
(Seal) OTTO A. CASE,
Auditor of King County, Wash.
By C.F. GAGE, Deputy.
With Rev. H.H. Gowen as the officiating clergyman, assisted by Rev. A. Patterson, Gunjiro Aoki, a Japanese, and Helen Gladys Emery, the fair young daughter of Archdeacon John Emery, of the Episcopal diocese of California, were married at Trinity Parish Church at 11:45 this morning. They had traveled for more than 1,000 miles to become legally united as man and wife, the laws of California, where the girl was born and reared, and where the courtship occurred in the California home of the Emerys at Corte Madera, preventing the union of white persons with those of an alien race.
Archdeacon Emery, his wife, who against her husband's strongly protested opposition to the union of white persons with those of an alien race.
Archdeacon Emery, his wife, who against her husband's strongly protested opposition to the union of her daughter with the Japanese, insisted on the marriage, and J. Sunada, proprietor of the Great Northern Hotel, were the only witnesses to the ceremony.
The big granite church at Eighth Avenue and James Street was dimly lighted for the ceremony. There was the true "cloistered aloofness" which the Japanese, Aoki, the former house servant of the Emerys, had travelled almost the length of the Coast to obtain.
Flight Their Troth and Forget Jeers.
Outside the church there was no gathering of any kind -- Aoki and his white bride -- a girl who seems as fair to look upon as Tennyson's Elaine, and whose knowledge of worldly matters is nil -- had finally landed before a Christian altar, and in the sacred silence within the granite walls of old Trinity they plighted their troth and forgot the jeers and threats of physical violence of the California towns which they had so lately quit for good.
How Gunjiro Aoki who claims kinship with the brilliant Gen. Aoki, of Russian-Japanese war fame, won the love of the fair young daughter of the California clergyman while he worked as a house servant in the California home of the Emerys, and how the story of the romance aroused in a sensational manner the anti-Japanese race prejudices of the people of California, is all told in the subjoined matter.
Driven From California.
Literally driven from California, Mrs. Emery and Helen Gladys were forced to seek a state where the laws would not prevent the girl's union with a man of the Japanese race. Oregon was barred to the loving twain -- her laws absolutely forbidding such marriage, and
Archdeacon Emery and his wife and child arrived here yesterday afternoon in company with the Japanese. The clergyman and his wife and daughter registered at the Hotel Savoy, where rooms 1103 and 1104 were given them. There last night Aoki joined them, and, having obtained the aid of local Japanese, he completed all arrangements for the wedding.
Aoki Ordinary-Looking Japanese.
Aoki is a short, ordinary-looking Japanese youth dresses in black, well-fitting clothes, and has a small, black moustache. The girl is slender, about five feet four inches tall, fair haired, blue-eyed and has a most charming expression on her face. She is for all the world the picture of fair, girlish innocence. Nor does she seem to be 21 years of age, as the marriage license reads.
This morning at 11 o'clock Archdeacon Emery, having earlier obtained a license for the wedding of the pair at the county courthouse, by arrangement with Rev. H. H. Gowen, rector of Trinity Parish, took his wife and daughter to the church at Eighth Avenue and James. There they found waiting them the groom and Sunada. There was no other witnesses. The Episcopal marriage service was performed and the party quickly left the sacred edifice.
Honeymoon on Fruit Ranch.
Accompanied by Mrs. Emery, Mr. and Mrs. Aoki left the church and boarded a James Street car for the down town district. On Second Avenue they took a North Queen Anne car. The girl's father, who left them at Second Avenue, went to the Hotel Savoy, paid the bill and packed his grip for the South. He said:
"Mr. and Mrs. Aoki will spend their honeymoon on a ranch in the Hoods canal country. It is owned by a business man of San Francisco, a friend of mine, whose name I will not divulge. He has offered them a lease of the place on a percentage of the crop from the fruit trees.
"The wedded pair will either make that place their home, or they will purchase a fruit ranch in some other part of the state. I cannot now say where. This proposition is under advisement. I am pledged not to divulge any of their plans, and as a matter of fact, their future has not been settled on. My wife will remain here for a time and I shall go back to San Francisco. I shall not be at my work there for some time as I have other engagements, which will take some days.
CHAPTER I.
Gunjiro Aoki arrived in San Francisco six years ago from Japan. His intention then was to live the life of the average Japanese in the United States and, if fate smiled on him, to return to Japan with his wealth. He had been preceded here by his elder brother, C. Aoki. The latter, after his arrival in San Francisco, was attracted to the missions maintained by the Episcopal Church and very soon discarded his old faith and embraced Christianity. It was but natural, therefore, that when Gunjiro joined him there he should take him to the Japanese mission and endeavor to impart to him the benefits which had been obtained by himself.
Gunjiro, while open to arguments, refused to accept the new religion with that enthusiasm which his brother expected. Instead he declared he would give Christianity a thorough study, and if he found it more convincing than Buddhism he would accept it.
The brother did not despair. He went about teaching Gunjiro and frequently took him to the Bible classes and prayer meetings at the mission at 2860 Pine Street. This mission was one of a number under the charge of Archdeacon Emery of the Episcopal faith and it was a part of his duty to make frequent visits there, directing, advising and supervising its workings.
Miss Emery Meets Aoki.
With him on his trips went Mrs. Emery and, very often, Miss Helen Gladys Emery, aiding the archdeacon as is common with the wives and daughters of clergymen.
It was during these visits that the two women first met Gunjiro, and almost from the outset his evident sincerity and his zeal for knowledge appealed to them. His story they learned from the converted brother and helped the latter toward the task of winning him over to the Christian faith. But the work was difficult. Gunjiro failed to grasp the advantages of the new religion as compared to the old:
While the effort of Christianizing him was at its height Mrs. Emery became in need of a houseboy to care for her residence at Corte Madera, and, after mature deliberation, offered the position to Aoki. Her intention was to kill two birds with one stone -- to secure a houseboy and also to further the Christian education of Aoki. Thus it was that Aoki entered the Emery household.
CHAPTER II.
Aoki as a houseboy was a marvel. As a subject for missionary zeal he was disappointing, but not hopeless. His outward manifestations were those of a Christian, but all efforts to lead him to the font for the formal conversion were fruitless. Of his sincerity Mrs. Emery had not the least doubt, and she redoubled her efforts to win him over.
Cupid's Dart Hit Mark.
In the meantime her daughter, Helen Gladys, had grown from a quiet, modest girl burning with missionary zeal and religious fervor. It soon became noticeable that between her and Aoki was a bond considerably stronger than that of mistress and houseboy, and the mother realized that she was face to face with a problem which would be difficult of solution.
On the one hand was the standard built by custom and the modern trend of thought, and on the other her duty as a Christian, which recognized neither color nor birth before the throne of her God. Also her daughter loved Aoki. The upshot was that the mother gave her consent to the marriage and broached the subject to her husband. This occurred six months ago.
Archdeacon Emery's first step was to discharge Aoki. Then he sent his wife and daughter away to Germany, hoping that a trip abroad would force the girl to a realization of her step and its consequences.
In three months his wife and daughter were back in the Corte Madera home and Aoki was cleaning the windows. The engagement now became a fact. Aoki was more than a houseboy; he was a prospective member of the family and was treated as such. It was in vain that the archdeacon pleaded and argued. Mrs. Emery and her daughter had made up their minds and naught could drive them from their stand. The home became divided against itself. But Aoki continued his studies of the Christian faith.
"She Loves -- That is Enough"
"My daughter loves Mr. Aoki," said Mrs. Emery, "and that ends it as far as we are concerned. We see our duty clearly. The arguments against his color and his birth are petty and unchristian."
The battle waged to and fro. The mother argued with the father, the father pleaded with the mother -- with no compromise. Archdeacon Emery refused to sanction the marriage and Mrs. Emery refused to sanction the marriage and Mrs. Emery refused to rupture the engagement.
In her efforts to gain the father's consent she wrote to her only son, Charles Emery, a dentist in Wrangel, Alaska, asking him to plead with his father for his sisters happiness. The answer came back, brief, poignant and full of meaning:
"Dear Mother," wrote he, "you know how I love a nigger. CHARLES."
CHAPTER III.
The battle did not end with the father and son being arrayed against the mother and daughter. Friends neighbors and relatives, seeing the situation and failing to grasp the motives of Mrs. Emery, dropped away.
Mrs. Charles Emery, a daughter in law, who was visiting the family, hurriedly left. "I could not," she said, "bear the sight of Helen and her mother kissing the man."
Friends calling in for a visit would be startled to see the affection existing between the two women and the houseboy. On occasions he would be seen seated in an armchair with the mother on one side and the daughter on the other, their arms entwined around his neck. The attitude of Mrs. Emery was of course motherly, but Corte Madera failed to understand. Whispers were heard. They grew to open murmurs and finally into an outburst of protest. The archdeacon who during these days had been spending only two or three nights a week at his home, endeavoring to swamp the bitterness of the haunting thoughts by an avalanche of work, now ceased his visits altogether.
Archdeacon Is Firm.
The home of a lifetime's toil toppled about his ears and he withdrew unto himself, saying nothing. On one point he was firm. He refused to sanction the marriage; whereupon the mother and daughter proceeded to take the case into their own hands and arrange the union without his consent. Up to this point the dominance of the mother's will had carried its purpose, but here it snapped.
Public opinion arose against her
Aoki was driven from Corte Madera, and a crowd of angry citizens watched every train to prevent his return. Theirs was the simplest remedy of the whole perplexing problem -- a sound thrashing for the houseboy. And Aoki remained away. Then Mrs. Emery gave way. With her daughter she began to pack up her belongings with the intention of leaving the state.
"This marriage is going to take place," said she. "When, I do not know, but it is going to take place. Do not think either my daughter or myself are to be frightened by the anger of hoodlums. I don't care a snap for public opinion. I know I am right in my stand and nothing will make me waver. I am going away from here, going away from California, away from the scum of the earth. I am going to live among white people."
"With a colored son in law?" she was asked.
"With a son in law whose soul is white. I do not care what people say or think. I am right. I know I am right. My daughter loves the man and he is a good man. His color or his position is immaterial to me, and it would be un-Christian for me to allow them to interfere with my daughter's happiness.
"Does marriage to a white man guarantee her happiness? On the contrary, the divorce courts show that three out of five marriages end unhappily -- and this is among the white race. Can the same be said of the Japanese? No. I have met all the arguments for and against the marriage, and I rest content in the knowledge that I am right. For the public I care not. I have no friends in California and I do not want any of this type. Nowhere else but in California would there be so much uproar over a marriage of this character. And do you think I am affected by what the mob says or does -- this mob which is ruled by a lying press or the empty denunciations of lying politicians? I am right. Nothing can change me."
The ripples from the storm center broke in another direction. Rev. C. Aoki, who in the intervening years had won honor in the execution of his missionary work among his countrymen and given a sacerdotal position above them, suffers also. His friends have advised him to resign. his work of years is in danger of being swept away. The Japanese population declare that it would be better for him to give place to one whose family name has not been disgraced.
"I do not know what to do," said he. "My brother is foolish and unwise to talk of marriage to Miss Emery. He has no position, no money and not prospects. I have done my utmost to prevent the step, but he has refused to listen to me. In the face of the disgrace he has inflicted on my family name my friends have advised me to resign. I will discuss the matter with Bishop Nichols and abide by his decision."
[Photo caption]: ARCHDEACON EMERY, who has steadily opposed daughter's marriage to Japanese.