Exclusive: Eloped? Elizabeth Warren’s Parents Married in Religious Ceremony

Last night, in an interview with the Boston Globe, Elizabeth Warren claimed that her parents were forced to elope because her father’s family objected to her mother’s Native American heritage:

In the 1930s, when my parents got married, these were hard issues. My father’s family so objected to my mother’s Native American heritage that my mother told me they had to elope. [emphasis added]

Breitbart News has obtained a copy of what it believes to be Warrens’ parents’ marriage certificate from Hughes County, Oklahoma, dated January 4, 1932. The marriage took place in Holdenville, Oklahoma, the county seat, located approximately 14 miles from Wetumka, Oklahoma, which both the 21-year-old groom, Donald J. Herring, and 19-year-old bride, Pauline Reed, declared as their residence.

Breitbart News found the certificate at the blog Pollysgranddaughter, where it was linked on May 22, prior to Warren’s claims about her parents’ marriage.

According to the document, the marriage was performed by Sidney H. Babcock, pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church South of Holdensville, Oklahoma.
Typically, couples that elope do not marry in a church, or in their place of residence.

Breitbart News will continue to investigate Ms. Warren’s claims that her parents were forced to elope because of her father’s family’s objections to her mother’s Native American heritage and will report those facts as they are discovered.

Michael Patrick Leahy is a Breitbart News contributor, Editor of Broadside Books’ Voices of the Tea Party e-book series, and author of Covenant of Liberty: The Ideological Origins of the Tea Party Movement.