Recently about 100 close relatives and friends gathered from across the country at the Kingston Manor on North Third Street in Kingston to celebrate the 65th wedding anniversary of life-long Roane County residents Margaret Abbey (nee Giles) and Edward Barton "Barton" Bennecker of Harriman.

Hosts for the March 20, 2004 event for were the Benneckers' three daughters, Lynette Easter of Kingston; Toni Cook of Harriman; and Phyllis Vice of Vienna, VA; and their immediate families: six grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and spouses of all of those who are married.

The 1848-built Kingston Manor, in its previous incarnation as the Pennebacker House, is the third oldest building in Kingston. A young Margaret and Barton met at the Midget, at the time a popular gathering spot and watering hole in Harriman for teens and young adults. Not too long afterward, they "slipped away," as they put it, to be married on March 20, 1939. Around 8 p.m., the Harriman couple, accompanied by their friends Edna and Carl Sullivan, woke the preacher who lived in the Pennebacker house. That night he married the eloping pair in a room adjacent to the one where they would renew their vows sixty-five years later to the day.

On the first day of Spring this year, they stood again in the venerable house and rededicated themselves to one another in a ceremony solemnized by Rev. Mason Goodman, pastor of Riverside Baptist Church in Harriman, who, like his wife Joyce, has known the Benneckers as long as he can remember. The Goodmans' anniversary is also March 20.

Besides the renewal of vows, highlights of the afternoon included the Benneckers' great-granddaughter singing Wind Beneath My Wings, a favorite of the couple's; a large buffet prepared by the Manor's staff; a cake-cutting ceremony; and a special presentation of their original wedding certificate to them by their daughter Toni.

About sixty-years ago, Toni, then a toddler, came across the marriage certificate. Before being discovered, she had bitten off its edges and gnawed well into its text. For the anniversary, this tattered piece of paper, which had long ago been replaced by an intact copy, was reclaimed and framed. Anchored now in the center of an unadorned solid wooden frame, the certificate, like the Bennecker family itself, is emblematic of a rich but unpretentious history.

The entire family was born and raised in Roane County and attended Roane County schools. Barton, now retired, worked on the floor of the Meade Corporation, Harriman's paper mill, for most of his adult life. Benneckers have lived in this area since since the last quarter of the 19th century, not long after Barton's grandfather Charles Samuel Bennecker migrated here from Germany. Barton's parents were Rockwood's Mary Ann Columbia Jones and Edward L. Bennecker, a manager of the old Roane Iron Company's commissary until his untimely death in 1921.

Margaret was the youngest child of Cora Pickens Ellis and thirty-year Harriman City Judge William Morgan Giles whose office was in the old Temperance Building on Roane Street. Margaret's family lines can be traced back to some of Tennessee's earliest settlers, including Roane County's acknowledged first permanent white settlers, the Brashears family of Sugar Grove Valley.

More photos:

Click to go to a photo of the entire Bennecker family at the anniversary celebration.

Click to go to a photo of Margaret and Barton saying their vows.

Click to go to a photo of Margaret and Barton circa 1939.

Click to go to a photo of Margaret and Barton cutting their anniversary cake.

Note: All photos are fairly high resolution and may take some time to load if you have a slow internet connection.