DescriptionMarriage certificate of Emil Reiner & Emma Wermuth, St. Matthew's Church, Hoboken, November 10, 1909. ca. 12" wide x 16" high in two pieces, edges trimmed. Reverse is blank. Laminated with clear adhesive film (non-archival) both sides. With two enclosures: 1. Newsclipping from an unidentified German-language publication contemporary with the certificate describing the circumstances of the wedding. ca. 2-1/4" wide x 4-1/2" high, also laminated. 2. A typewritten translation of the news article with an additional note by an Eleanor Weber. Single 8-1/2" high x 11" sheet folded to [4] pages and folded to 5-1/2" x 4-1/4" plus envelope. Text on page [1]. Text of translation & note: Happily United. Representatives of the German Emigrant Home see loving pair in distress! As the German steamship, [North German Lloyd Line] George Washington, arrived on Wednesday evening, it brought in the second class, Miss Emma Wermuth of Berne, Switzerland, a very well educated young lady who could speak German, French and English who had sufficient means. Miss Wermuth is the fiance (sic) of the chef of the Marlborough Blenheim Hotel in Atlantic City, Mr. Emil Reiner, who welcomed her at the dock. According to the law, the immigration officers would not permit her to land and she would have to go to Ellis Island which the young couple did not like. In this emergency, they asked the representative of the German Emigrant Home for advice. He called Pastor Richter from Hoboken and in the late evening he married the young people and there was no more hindrance and they were free to go. (Tante Lore explained this last paragraph thus -- unmarried girls arriving from Europe were not permitted to land at the docks as she put it "girls were being sold into white slavery" and the immigration officers had their orders to send them to Ellis Island where they would be held in quarantine and then released to their sponsors. E.W. [holographic ink: Eleanor Weber]