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OSEPH
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ILLIAN
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LASS
Lillian Mae Glass, 1891 – 1970 was born in Neelyville,
Butler County, Missouri. Lillie was the youngest of the
17 children fathered by Marion Jacqueline Glass.
There are phrases for marriages like the one
made by Joseph, a.k.a. Mac Thomson and Lillie Glass.
Some call it robbing the cradle. The more genteel
whisper about a May–December marriage. There are
phrases for a marriage like the one made by Mac and
Lillie because it is so far outside the norm.
At 17 Lillie was in her prime, a beautiful young
woman from a small farming town in southern
Missouri. Lillie was by no means a poor country girl.
Her father, deceased, had left her a small, landed
dowry. Mac was a traveling medicine man well past
his prime at the age of 37. For months after their
elopement, Mac and Lillie were grist for the Neelyville
gossip mill.