On February 14, 1904, the Sunday morning Joplin (MO) Globe contained an announcement in the society section of the newspaper informing readers that William F. Gray and Bessie F. McCombs would be united in marriage at 11 o'clock that morning by Justice of the Peace J. L. Potter. The 18-year-old Miss McCombs, the Globe told its readers, was very popular and had scores of friends among the younger set, even though she had only resided in Joplin a short while. Her parents were well respected citizens of Kansas City. The prospective groom was an interior decorator by trade, a prominent young man in Joplin, and a world traveler who'd "twice circumnavigated the globe."
The next day, though, readers of the Globe learned that the wedding hadn't come off as planned "on account of the sudden disappearance of the bride." The couple had called on Friday at Potter's office and applied for a marriage license. Gray had gone back on Saturday and, learning that the license had arrived, arranged for the marriage to take place on Sunday morning at his home. The young couple parted on Saturday evening with the understanding that they would wed the next day at 11:00 a.m. Bessie went to the home of her aunt, Mrs. Gardner, on Joplin Street, where she had been staying. There she would dress for the wedding the next morning and appear for the wedding at the appointed time.
Gray, Justice Potter, and a number of wedding guests all gathered for the event on Sunday morning. A wedding dinner was prepared, and everything was in readiness. But Miss McCombs didn't show up. Gray waited in vain for some time before undertaking a search for his missing bride. He went to Mrs. Gardner's house, where he was told that Bessie had left an hour earlier to go to another aunt's house, where she was supposed to make final preparations for the wedding. Gray raced to the other aunt's house, only to be told that Bessie hadn't been there at all.
In vain, he searched the entire city, aided by the police. Justice Potter said that, when he'd seen the girl on Friday, she'd been in the best of spirits, and he never would have suspected the young woman, whom he described as "good looking," wouldn't go through with the marriage. However, police did not suspect foul play. Potter said he was dumbfounded by what had transpired.
On Monday night, Bessie phoned Gray after reading in the newspaper about the sensation her supposed disappearance had caused and expressed regret over the "misunderstanding." She said she'd gone from her aunt's house on Sunday morning to the residence of R. J. Gardner at 1618 Wall Street, where she'd taken a job as a domestic and immediately gone to work there. Gray rushed to where he thought Bessie had said she was, but in his haste, he went by mistake to the wrong address, 1619 Wall. When he returned from his fruitless mission, he was downhearted and thought Bessie was "trying to make sport of him."
But the next morning, when Bessie called again, Gray answered the second summons as promptly as he had the first, and the couple had a happy reunion. That same Tuesday evening, the two went together to Justice Potter's office and got married quietly with very few in attendance.
Bessie, whom a Globe reporter described as "really beautiful, even more so than the regulation heroine," remarked that there was a "slight misunderstanding" between her and Gray but that she did not care to go into detail since everything had ended happily.
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