The Rantz Family in Spokane, Washington in 1917, as seen in a photo on FamilySearch.org. From left to right, Harry Rantz, Frederick Rantz, Nellie Rantz (nee Maxwell), and in front, Joseph Rantz. PHOTO PROVIDED

In the early 1940s, as World War II raged on, the song “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” by Bing Crosby became popular with families separated during the holidays.

Especially with the lyric “I’ll be home for Christmas, If only in my dreams.”

Thanks to modern day technology, it is much easier to keep families together. However, one Williamsport family used a telephone to make their dreams come true back in 1899. Not long after the Christmas holidays, Henry Rantz and Nellie Maxwell, two teenagers, wanted to get married and get married fast and that is what they did.

“A wedding ceremony, unique in its originality, by which two young romantic hearts were made to beat as one, was performed,” the Gazette and Bulletin said on Feb. 2, 1899.

Instead of it beginning with “Dearly beloved we are gathered together,” the Lewisburg Chronicle said in a Feb. 4, 1899 article, it actually began this way, “Hello there! Is that Williamsport?” It was answered with “Yes, this is Williamsport. Is this Elmira?” Followed by, “Yes.” The parties involved said, “All right; go ahead!”

The paper said, “The long-distance telephone wires whirred, the bells jingled a merry wedding march.” It bridged a “distance of 78 miles [that] intervened between the young couple,” the Chronicle said.

It seems the request for the wedding began in late January 1899 with Rantz approaching a Presbyterian minister in Elmira. Rantz delivered a letter, written by Maxwell’s father, to Rev. Dr. Isaac Jennings, to help with a “a somewhat novel request,” the Elmira Star-Gazette, reported.

Maxwell’s father had “consulted his attorney and was assured that there were no legal complications or obstacles in the way,” the Star-Gazette said.

Jennings also consulted a lawyer in Elmira to make sure everything was legal. After Jennings was satisfied, “Mr. Rantz proceeded with him to the office of the long-distance telephone company,” the Lewisburg Chronicle said.

Upon arriving, they asked to be connected with a Williamsport phone number where Maxwell had been waiting in Williamsport.

“[Jennings] found everything in readiness, and the young ladies of the telephone exchange were invited to listen…to the ceremony,” the Chronicle explained. In all accounts of this event, all newspapers said the operators that were in attendance were “not witness[es].”

The ceremony went well.

“The usual [wedding] questions and answers were given and repeated and it is said that the phones were never more distinct and the young people had no difficulty in understanding the clergyman or each other,” the Chronicle said.

When the service concluded, the Chronicle said, “Congratulations were extended by all who were on the line and who were at the ends of the line at the time.”

As for who the couple were, Maxwell, the Williamsport resident, was the “daughter of the Rev. Lafayette Maxwell, the well known Tivy bicycle manufacturer.” She was 17 years old at the time.

“…Rantz, the groom, is about 20 years of age and is a student at the Williamsport High School,” the Chronicle said. It was promised that he would take an early train back to Williamsport. The Daily Gazette and Bulletin reported that the groom would quit high school “tomorrow and next week will take charge of the Tivy bicycle works as manager.”

By 1910, the family had moved to Washington state. The Rantz family went on to have two children at least, before Nellie Maxwell-Rantz passed away on March 2, 1918 at the young age of 36.

The Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Washington, mentioned, in a March 4, 1918 obituary, that she had died “after a lingering illness.” It further stated, “The body will be taken back, by Mr. Rantz, to Williamsport, Pa…for burial.”

According to Find A Grave, Rantz would later remarry in 1921, though his second wife would die in 1935 at a young age of 38. Rantz would pass away at the age of 86 in 1966 living in California.

So this Christmas take a moment and remember when telephone calls were “somewhat novel” and the “somewhat novel request” by one man anxious to spend his life with the girl he loved.