It was a chivalrous gesture, one intended to save a damsel from the dark – me from my mistake. The yellow Post-It note on my desk said, “charivari or shivaree” is the name for the noisy, mock serenade of newlyweds I referred to in a previous article. “Chivalry,” the term I mistakenly used, is the behavior of a gallant knight, one of courage and virtue. A charivari, whose Latin derivative means “headache,” is anything but chivalrous.
A Caterwauling Custom
Charivaris (shivarees) are an ancient custom, originating in Europe and well established in America by the 19th Century. An account from 1805 describes a charivari in New Orleans. “The house is mobbed by thousands of the people of the town, vociferating and shouting with loud acclaim….and all have some kind of discordant and noisy music, such as old kettles, and shovels, and tongs…. All civil authority and rule seems laid aside.”
It was started with chivalrous intent, to scare bad spirits away from a new marriage of unlikely odds. But, the spirits weren’t scared. They just evolved into a rowdy racket of hootin’ and hollerin’ family and friends who gathered to bless and mess with newly beloveds on the first eve of their marital bliss.
Spies were employed. Traps were set. Tricks were played. Bed slats were removed to encourage a timely collapse, and cowbells were tied on bed springs. Sheets were layered with cracker crumbs, eggs, sugar or salt. Pantries were raided, and labels were removed from canned goods.
And the noise…oh, the noise, noise, noise!!
The caterwaulding crescendo of the crowd could be heard for miles. Guns blasted, pans clanged, cowbells rang, washtubs pounded, horns blared. Tin siding was raked, and children cowered, convinced this was an event that could come to no good end.
It was useless to hide. A tardy appearance by a couple-in-hiding was sped up by someone clambering to the rooftop and stuffing a rag down the stove pipe to smoke them out. The couple was, most likely, reluctant to face the likelihood of being dumped in the pond or made to straddle a rail and “ridden” around the yard.
A return to peace was guaranteed only by “treating” the crowd to candy and cigars.
Charivaris, it was said, went out of fashion with the coming of World War II.
But not here, not in the Ozarks. We like to cling to those caterwauling customs, as evidenced by the following stories and the fact this author’s own mother was dumped from a wheelbarrow as she was charivari-ed down Houston’s Grand Avenue in 1949.
A Progressive Charivari
No one can quite remember how it happened, but Luther Roderick moved back to Upton in the 1960s after living away for a number of years, and he brought a new wife.
“No marriage was complete,” said an Upton native, left anonymous to protect the guilty, “until they were charivari-ed, even if they were married for years!”
Luther’s brother, Pete, and his wife, Ruby Roderick, ran the small general store in the neighborhood. It was a close community with many cousins and relatives, so it was really a family gathering when cars filled with kids and kin drove to Luther’s house honking and shooting guns.
Luther went to Pete’s nearby store for candy bars to appease the easygoing crowd. “There was no destructive actions,” said Carol Roberts. “There were kids present.”
Discussion brought up the fact there were several marrieds in the neighborhood that had not been initiated with a charivari, so the band of merry makers proceeded on their mission. It became a progressive charivari in which five couples were charivari-ed.
“It went from dark to midnight with lots of coffee and candy, visiting and laughter,” said Carol.
It was after midnight, when Carol and husband B.J. returned home. They were putting the kids to bed, when out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, they sprang from their beds to see what was the matter!
Carol and B.J., married in 1959, had not been charivaried and it was their turn.
Pete Roderick had thought ahead. He brought the candy.
The Wildest Ever!
“It scared me to death,” said the grown man, just a kid at the time. “It was the biggest and wildest charivari that had ever been in the Mountain Grove area and probably ever will be!”
In the spring of 1951, Bill Mayfield spent every Wednesday and Saturday night picking up Eva Mathis for their weekly date. They were sweethearts, and everyone knew it. They also knew Bill was soon headed to California to pick fruit. Bill had participated in a few charivaris and pranks, and his friends were determined they would not be cheated out of a “get-even,” opportunity. Lookouts had been posted for days.
So Friday, June 22, 1951, Bill and Eva were followed, unbeknownst to them, for 4.5 miles as they headed to Arkansas to be married. By the time they returned that afternoon, lookouts were stationed in the brush on the hillsides overlooking the home of Eva’s parents that stood near the creek.
Bill dropped Eva off. He would pick her up tomorrow for their usual Saturday night date, then Monday they would leave for California and claim a great escape!
Saturday evening, Bill headed to Eva’s, but stopped to give a buddy a ride to check his cattle. It was a mistake, and he was captured. “He had it coming,” the family said.
When they drove by Eva’s house, people popped out of the bushes and came off the hills like ants going to a picnic. “There had to be a hundred or more,” said Eva, who had never seen a charivari before. “They dragged Bill by his arms and legs over rocky dirt down to the creek.”
“Hold her,” the crowd instructed Eva’s brother, Fay. He grabbed her.
“SAY TREAT!” the crowd told Bill. He would not. They dunked him and held him under water until he thought he was going to drown.
“SAY TREAT!” the friends yelled.
No luck. They pulled the hair out of his legs. They poured sand in his ears.
“Remember,” Eva said to her brother as they watched the mayhem, “you haven’t been charivari-ed, and they might charivari you!”
He released Eva, and they both ran out the back door and climbed a tree.
“SAY TREAT!” The crowd put axel grease down Bill’s pants. They poured peppermint oil into his mouth and clamped it shut.
Eva began to fear she would be attending her new husband’s funeral before their wedding night, and she climbed down from the tree to save him. Her brother stayed.
The crowd rolled her in a mud puddle, put bugs down her shirt and smashed eggs in her clothes.
Finally, the frenzied crowd began to falter. The list of friendly torture techniques was dwindling. What else could they do?
“Well, okay then,” said Bill, seeing their dilemma, “I’ll treat!”
The crowd waited while Bill went to town to get treats. He returned and handed out candy and packages of Chicklet gum.
But, there was a trick in his treat. Bill had replaced the Chicklet gum tablets with Fenamint laxatives.
“I will admit it was exciting!”
Bill and Betty Ann “B.A.” McCaskill had been married since June 18, 1950, when she and Bill crawled into bed that summer in their attic apartment of the frame house on Hawthorn Street. Suddenly, a racket broke loose.
“It was a lot of noise, shot guns, cans, whooping, yelling. I said, ‘What’s happening, Bill?” said B.A.
“I think we are being charivari-ed,” he said.
“They still DO that???” said B.A. as the narrow staircase filled with friends.
B.A. and Bill were ushered out of the apartment and escorted to Grand Avenue where a wheelbarrow was waiting for the groom to give his bride a ride down the town’s main street. Next, they were loaded into the car and taken to Dog’s Bluff where Bill was tossed into the Piney.
“I jumped in,” said B.A. “I don’t remember if there were treats.”
Maybe watermelon, for watermelon was sold at the McCaskill Mill.
When the crowd dispersed, and the charivari ceased, B.A. crawled back into her bed relieved the ordeal was over. As she stuck her foot under the sheets, it ran into something slimy and definitely out of place.
“It was a frog, probably from the Piney. Corny, that’s what we would have called them (charivaris) at the time. But,” she said, “I will admit, it was exciting.”