The photographer posed him underneath the Justice of the Peace sign on the porch of his home and office directly across the tracks from the squat Folkston railroad depot. It was not a characteristic pose, really. Sage, unhurried and philosophical as a Biblical prophet, J.E. Harvey has been weddin' couples for 58 years, since he was 18, and he long ago stopped standing on his porch on the lookout for approaching customers, if he ever did.
He has the hooded eyes of old age behind thick-lensed glasses now, and his carefully brushed white hair has taken on that incongruous softness of a baby's hair, and there's the inevitable stoop to his shoulders that a man gets even before he's 76. Nuptial dramas and comedies have been enacted before him in untold number over the long years, with and endless variety of casts, and he has presided over the rites with the unshakable authority of a benevolent but oak-willed stage manager. In the good days, before certain restrictions were legislated in the little Georgia border town, he's perform as many as 1,500 marriages in a year.
Do you remember the first one, J. E. Harvey, just after you'd been appointed Justice of the Peace in Hortense, Georgia, before your eyes had begun to dim and you still were rattling out telegraph messages for the railroad? Do you remember the shy couple that stood on the steps of the outlying farmhouse with a cluster of friends and relatives while you enunciated those words for the first time?
He remembers sitting at his glass-topped desk where dozens of snapshots of couples he has joined gin in fixed bliss, and he similes back over the years. He reminisces, his voice touched slightly by a venerable quiver.
"When it was over he and his bride just went on in his daddy's house and everybody went home. There was no honeymoon, no refreshments for the relatives and guests, nothing. He didn't pay me anything. In those days we didn't get paid for it."
That was my first marriage and I was scared to death. His name was Rufus Crews. I saw him a few years ago, not long before he died, and he said, 'Ain't your name Harvey?'I said yes, and he said 'you're the man got me in trouble.' I asked what he meant. He said 'You're the man married me and my wife.' He had five children and three grandchildren. 'Best deed you ever done for me', he said,'even if you did get me into trouble!'
"I came here in 1951, after I retired from railroadin'. Those were the good days. Back then, we married 'em night and day. Did everthing right here at home, issued the licenses, performed the ceremonies, everything. There was no waiting period then, and you could marry a 15 year old, if she had her parents' permission. They have to be 18 now, and the hours are eight in the morning to six at night. Night was when we married most of them in the good days. That's when I'd be up all night marring them.
I even married a Rothchild once. They flew in from London to Jacksonville Florida. When it was over he gave me a ten dollar bill, but his wife later sent me two neckties and a hundred dollar bill from London.
"One time I'd just married a couple and the husband said,'What do I owe you?' and I said, 'Whatever she's worth to you.' He handed me a penny and his wife hauled off and beat the daylights out of him right here on the floor.
"Another man called me two hours after the ceremony and said, 'You remember that woman you just married me to?' I said I remembered her. 'Well, she won't let me love her.' I jokingly said, 'Well, push her out at the next filling station. "And do you know what? He did. A man that was with him came back and told me."
The oldest person I ever married was a 96-year-old man who weighed 115 pounds and was just as spry as a 15-year-old and just as tickled. Woman he married was 38 and weighed 230 pounds. When I got through marrying him I said,'You just committed suicide.' He said,'I believe she can take care of me.' I said she looked like she could.
The oldest woman I ever married was 90.
I've married them in wheel chairs and many's the time I've gone outside and married people in cars who couldn't get out. Some couples stop by to speak to me again. Many of them are happy and have kind words to say.
I've had couples come in to marry, then later have them come back with chidren from three different marriages - which ended in divorce - to try it a fourth time.
"Not that I haven't had some mean people. See this axe handle? I keep it here by the desk when I have to straighten one out. Some come in drinking,and I won't marry them if they are drinking. They start in wanting to make me do it. I can only go so far, then they've been warned to stop. If they don't I let 'em have it right side the head. Then their friends drag 'em out by their heels. I've only had to hit about ? though.
"I've been using the same ceremony a long time. Most preachers,judges and ordinaries and justices of the peace put the woman under a stricter oath than the man. I put them both under the same oath. I say, 'Do you take this lady that you hold by your right hand to be your lawful and wedded wife to love, cherish and comfort in sickness and in health as long as you both shall live.' This is the same I ask of the lady, only I say do you love this gentleman. Others ask the lady to love and obey, I don't, else I'd have to ask the husband, too.
"It takes two to get along. I know I married at 15, and I had seven children.
My wife had a heart attack right there in the bedroom in 1948 and she was gone in twenty minutes. I never married again, and never thought about it.
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