Thomas Liss Weds Miss Della Nolan
When I was growing up, my grandmother used to reminisce about how she ran away to the icehouse to meet my grandfather for their planned elopement. It wasn't until I discovered a hundred-year-old newspaper clipping in a box of family photos that I began to imagine a more complicated story.
July 5, 1921 was Tuesday, a somewhat unusual day for a wedding. The bride and groom had actually planned to elope the day before, Monday, July 4, when the barber shop was closed. Tom saw no reason to shutter his barbering business on Saturday when the shop was its busiest. The 4th of July celebrations around Butte would distract family and friends. After all it was the day of the biggest parade of the year.
Della knew her family didn't approve of him. After a brief courtship, they planned to elope. She would meet him at the icehouse at the edge of town and they would take off from there. They had plans to travel for a long honeymoon exploring the Bitterroot Mountains and staying in cozy cabins. Everyone would have calmed down by the time they returned to town.
Della, the youngest of five children born to John and Mary Nolan, had met Tom Liss when she was working at the Butte Barber Supply. She was so flummoxed by this dark and dashing young barber that she sold him toothpaste instead of shaving cream, or was it the other way around? It didn't matter, she was smitten from the first.
He wasn't like so many of the other men in rough and tumble Butte—hard rock miners or even the tradesmen like her father, a plumber. He was new to the town and he wasn't Irish. Eight years her senior, Tom had stories about travelling around the country in a vaudeville review and working as a barber in other cities before settling into the booming town. There was rumor of a previous marriage. Della didn't care.
Wanting to look her best for her beau and soon-to-be husband, Della took advantage of being the youngest and "borrowed" some of her wedding finery from her sisters, Marion and Kathryn. Kathryn, pretty, spoiled, and sometimes spiteful, was a clotheshorse who spent much of her secretary's salary on her wardrobe. Marion, the most sensible of the sisters, still had a sense of style and a few choice pieces in her closet, too. After harvesting abroad-brimmed hat and trim jacket from one, a blouse and silk stockings from another (the Nolan girls were known for their well-turned ankles) and she was ready to go.
Off to the icehouse to meet Tom. And by surprise, her sister Kathryn, who had a rendezvous of her own, invited by a prospective suitor to a picnic at the Columbia Gardens. Although their mother often reminded Kathryn that she couldn't return a man the way she could a hat, she had no shortage of beaus. Not finding her stockings, she went through the bedroom shared with her sister in a fury. Where were her things and where was Della?
Now the entire family was in an uproar. Della was gone but where? Had she confided in anyone? If it was anyone it would have been Helen, the eldest, who was married and living close-by with Albert Pettibone, her house painter husband of English descent. Helen had been sworn to secrecy but seeing her parents' anguish over their "baby" girl, she broke, sending Kathryn off with their brother Jack to rescue Della from Tom.
They underestimated the couple. With her intended by her side, Della refused to be dissuaded. She knew her heart and was going to marry Tom. She didn't care what they thought. And Tom was a skillful negotiator. He hadn't made his success without learning a thing or two about people. They discussed a compromise; they would go the priest at Sacred Heart first thing in the morning. It wasn't the Catholic sacrament the family had hoped for, but it was a marriage in the Church. Tom had been baptized and raised a Catholic by his Polish parents in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Maybe it would turn out alright. He was a good businessman, respected in town. He loved their daughter.
A few days later this announcement appeared in the Butte's hometown paper, The Montana Standard:
Thomas Liss Weds Miss Della Nolan
News of the marriage of Thomas Liss, manager of the Rialto barber shop, and Miss Della Nolan leaked out today, the couple being united at the Sacred Heart rectory on the morning of July 5. Only members of Miss Nolan's family and close friends of Mr. Liss were informed of the life contract by the couple who left at once for a tour of the state.
Mr. Liss is a businessman of this city having been manager of the Rialto barber shop while the bride is a well know Butte girl and was formerly in the employ of the Butte Barber Supply company. They will be gone for a month or more on a honeymoon trip after which they will make their home in Butte.
The marriage lasted 35 years, until Tom Liss died on a 4th of July weekend in 1956. Over the years, Della and Tom raised two children and built a of their own cabin in the woods.