A week ago last Sunday friends and neighbors of Mr. and Mrs. Ferdinand Werth of Bartley Township gathered to celebrate an occasion that literally may be said to happen once in a blue moon - a 70th wedding anniversary.
The exact date of their marriage is recorded in a family book of records as May 27, 1865.
It was a church wedding in the little German village of Saalfield, East Prussia, during the reign of Emperor Fredrick William IV. The entire village turned out to celebrate the event for to the Prussian peasants it was a gala affair.
Seventy years later, transplanted as it were, from the native soil of the Fatherland to the depression -ridden prairies of Dakota, that same couple, their shoulders carrying the weight of years that lack but five of being a century, stepped delightedly forward to renew the vows they spoke before the church altar 70 years ago.
As on that memorable occasion, friends by the hundreds visited the August Werth home to assist in the celebration and wish them "a long life of wedded happiness.€ To the world at large they are Mr. and Mrs. Ferdinand Werth, another aged couple, but to their host of friends in Bartley Township and their numberless acquaintances among young people in Griggs County they are "Gram'ma and Gram'pa".
In Germany Grandpa Werth was a coachman in the service of a huge estate. The landlord paid his tenants $12.00 per year and a yearly allowance from the produce of the land from which advances were made as they were needed.
Sometimes, Grandma says, the allowance used up before the year was over and then the tenants had to skimp and save the year following to make up the difference.
On one occasion a drought hit the country that lasted for seven years. Food was so scarce that at the end of that time Mr. and Mrs. Werth discovered they had but two bushel of potatoes after all the years of hard effort. Meanwhile they had heard of the "land of opportunity" and they decided to come to America.
They landed in New York in 1890 and came to Maiden Rock, Wisconsin, where they farmed for 15 years before moving to Hannaford.
At the present time they are making their home with their only surviving son, August Werth, four miles west of Walum. The couple had five boys and two girls, but five of the children died in infancy. Another died in Canada.
There are 5 grandchildren, 17 great grandchildren, and 1 great, great grandchild, who is thus a member of the fifth generation.
Source: Griggs County History 1879 - 1976 Page 233