Edith and William Oettle, of Waterloo, Ill., returned to Piggott last Wednesday for a visit to the town where they were married one day before their 60th wedding anniversary. (Times photo/Tim Blair) [Click to enlarge]

The city of Piggott's reputation as "The Marrying Town" has made the community well known across portions of the central United States. It's possible for a person to travel to about any city in some parts of Missouri and Illinois and you'll find someone who was married in Piggott or whose parents or grandparents were married here. It's a bit of a phenomenon that so many nuptials were said in our fair town, and how that has made the city part of so many marriages and family histories.

Another by-product of being "The Marrying Town" is also the people who come back to visit the place where they were married, some many years past.

That was the case last Wednesday, as William and Edith Oettle made the trip from Waterloo, Ill., to visit the town where they tied the knot on Aug. 28, 1948.

"She was 18 and I was 23," William explained of the trip to Arkansas, "but her cousin was only 16 and she wanted to get married to a fellow named Bruce Presley -- no relation to Elvis." So the two couples made the decision to make the trip to Piggott from their homes in Goreville, Ill.

"We left at 8 that morning and traveled all day," Edith added. "We got to the courthouse here around 4:20 p.m. and almost missed everyone. We got married in the old courthouse that used to be here, but I'm not sure who did the ceremony. I think it was a justice of the peace."

Following the ceremonies the two couples returned to Illinois to start their new lives. "We got back and had $7.50 to our name and I had no job," William reminisced. "But I went back to school, back to high school that fall and I was the only returning veteran to attend classes with seniors in Waterloo," he noted proudly. Oettle also continued his education, and would later spend 28 years as a teacher.

Following his retirement from the classroom, William and Edith started a produce farm in Waterloo, and grew fruit trees and a variety of vegetables. "That all ended in 1995 when a tornado wiped it all out, so we've been taking it easy since then," William added.

During their visit to Piggott the Oettles had an opportunity to visit the new courthouse, several shops downtown and were planning to visit both the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum and the Karl and Matilda Pfeiffer Museum. "It's such a pretty little town," Edith observed of downtown Piggott, "we didn't have much chance to enjoy it the first time we were here, it's nice to come back."