Left to right,
including (maiden) and married names:
Miriam Hall
(Nelson) Flanders, the bride's mother
Florence Nelson (Flanders) Hickok
Benjamin Blakely Hickok, grandson of
Hannah (Rich) Peters and William Blakely
Peters
Sarah Peters Hickok, the groom's mother
and daughter of Hannah Rich Peters &
William Blakely Peters.
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Benjamin Blakely
Hickok was a cryptographer in the Army
Air Corps. He met Florence Nelson
Flanders at the Army Air Corps base in
Presque Isle, Maine, where she was the
librarian. The Presque Isle army air base
was part of the elaborate network of air
bases involved in "air
ferrying"; that is, moving planes
safely to the European war zone via a
northern route that included Greenland.
Benjamin Blakely Hickok was shipped to
the Azores islands four months after the
wedding.
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| Derby
Line, Vermont, is a village of 776
people, and straddles the US-Canadian
border. In fact, Derby Line, Vermont, and
its Canadian twin, Rock Island, Quebec,
share the Haskell
Free Library and Opera House,
probably the world’s only edifice of
its type built on an international
border. (In recent years the village of
Rock Island has been consolidated into
the municipality of Stanstead, Quebec.) In the
library portion of the Haskell building,
the doors to the library are in the US
and the books are in Canada; in the opera
house portion of the building, the
audience sits in the United States to
watch plays being performed in Canada.
Several houses and a factory were also
bisected by the border, which was ignored
by early founders of the community.
The
border markings in these twin communities
were thought to represent the 45th
parallel; that is, 45 degrees of
latitude. Recent improvements in
surveying techniques, however, have
demonstrated that Derby Line is, in fact,
located at 45.005 degrees of latitude,
meaning a small portion of the US is
really in Canada!
This
wedding picture was taken at the Nelson
Homestead in Derby Line, Vermont,
Florence Nelson Flanders’ home.
Florence and her groom Benjamin Blakely
Hickok, the grandson of Hannah Rich and
William Blakely Peters of Delaware
County, NY, were married in the Anglican
Church in Stanstead. Technically
speaking, going to church that day, 7
August 1944, constituted an invasion of
Canada, as the groom and his party were
in US military uniforms. Fortunately, the
bride, the groom, and all their guests
were allowed through customs without a
call-up of Canadian armed forces.
Florence
Nelson Flanders' paternal grandfather was
Rev. Charles
Ruston Flanders, Headmaster of Stanstead
College. (Click at the
top on "Profiles and History,"
and then on "Photo Gallery.")
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