Commitment

Nov. 5, 1907
Los Angeles

John Richie led the bass section of the choir at St. Machar’s Cathedral in Aberdeen, Scotland, while Testristina Adams was a contralto. They sang in the choir for about 10 years, and fell in love.

Two years ago, in hopes of more opportunity, John left Scotland and came to Los Angeles, but not before asking Testristina, a pretty brunette, according to The Times, to marry him. “If I had not said that I would follow him he would never have come,” she said.

Recently, she embarked on a 7,000-mile journey to join John, who works at a Los Angeles hardware company. “She arrived in New York on Monday, Oct. 28,” The Times said, “on the Caledonia after nine days of the most strenuous voyaging that boat had ever experienced. Miss Adams, filled with the thought of seeing her lover after long years of waiting, refused to succumb to the illness which overcame even the stewards and landed in New York after a thoroughly enjoyed passage.”

Testristina said that of the people in her railroad car traveling from Chicago, 80 were planning to settle in Los Angeles. “All of them had nice things to say about California,” she said.

John, 31, and Testristina, 26, were married at the home of friends at 4419 Pasadena Ave. They did not plan a honeymoon trip, The Times noted, because “Miss Adams says she had had quite enough of traveling.”

Aside from John being selected as a soccer referee in 1908, I can find nothing else about the Richies in The Times, despite Testristina’s extremely unusual name (The Times also spelled it Testrestina) but I hope they had a long, happy life together and many grandchildren.

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