11/23/2008:
On this date in 1907, the Minot Daily Optic announced that a North Dakota man was about to give Miss 22-year-old Ella Endicott, an orphan of St. Louis who was left with just a little money from her parents, something to be thankful for—a dream wedding, scheduled for Thanksgiving day.
Ella was “wooed and won” by J. J. Delaney of Streeter. The two had met at a Minneapolis convent three years prior, and due to Delaney’s business, which often brought him east, they saw quite a bit of each other. He “wrote often and she answered at appropriate intervals,” according to those who would know. But what she didn’t know, she said, was that her fiancé was “one of the wealthiest men in the Northwest, that he was chief owner of six banks and held domain over 20,000 acres of land in North Dakota and eastern Montana,” and that he and his brother “practically own[ed] the town of Streeter.”
Sources:
Minot Daily Optic, Saturday, Nov. 23, 1907, p.2