Marry the One You Love.

The Milwaukee Sentinel

A SOUTH SIDE ELOPEMENT
February 14, 1888

Miss Lulu Wolfe Marries the Man of Her Choice Despite Her Parents.

Certain society circles in Bay View have been considerably agitated the past week over an alleged elopement which occurred last week, the principals in the affair being Miss Lulu Wolfe, eldest daughter of John R. Wolfe, proprietor of the Palmer house in Bay View, and Joseph Petelle, a young Frenchman employed in the North Chicago Rolling mills. Petelle was a boarder at the Palmer House and consequently managed to keep in the young lady's company most of the time. Miss Wolfe is a good-looking young lady of 18, while Petelle is much older, but does not appear to be over 18 or 19.
Their elopement and marriage had been planned for some time, but it is said upon the advice of some of her friends Miss Wolfe consented to wait until she became 18 years of age, so she could then marry Petelle without the consent of her parents. Miss Wolfe's birthday occurred on Monday last, but they were not married until the following Wednesday. Miss Wolfe's parents knew of their daughter's courtship, but did not imagine that anything serious would result therefrom.
Their strongest objections arose from the fact that Petelle is a Roman Catholic, while Miss Wolfe is a member of the Bay View Methodist Sunday school. When they learned of their daughter's marriage they were almost distracted and forbade her to enter the house again.
It was reported that the Rev. Father Fagan, of the Church of the Immaculate Conception had performed the ceremony and that Miss Wolfe had accepted the marriage vows of the Catholic faith. Father Fagan, however, denied having had a hand in the affair and knew nothing of the marriage. They were probably married by some Catholic priest in or around Milwaukee.
Mr. and Mrs. Petelle are temporarily at the residence of one of their friends, waiting for the latter's parents to relent.

In February 1888 Joseph, a 24-year old Catholic French-Canadian man, eloped with Lula Wolfe, a nice-looking young Methodist woman of German-Welsh extraction.

Their marriage prompted at least three reports in local newspapers. Joseph was an unskilled worker, raised by immigrants. He lived with his mother and brothers in a house they owned on Russell avenue.

Lula was born in 1870 in New Castle, Pennsylvania the oldest child of John Wolfe and Elizabeth Jones. Her family had made some inroads into the society circles of Bay View. They mingled with and attended the same church as community leaders such as the Brintons and the Estes'. Her uncle David Jones would have known Joseph from the nail mill, and perhaps it was he who brought the two together.

Knowing they would meet the disapproval of their families, the handsome young man with dark hair and blue eyes donned his best sack suit, gathered Johann Gajewski and John Pikulik, his two witnesses, and met Lula for the Saturday wedding before Justice of the Peace Theodore Rudzinski.

A few discrepencies: 1) Lula's birthdate on her death certificate was Feb. 2, not the 6th implied in the Milwaukee Sentinel article. 2) The Milwaukee marriage record states "Time when marriage was contracted...Feb. 4-88" (Saturday) while the Sentinel sets the date as Wednesday, Feb. 8

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