A marriage that shocked the nation and spurred legal changes to prevent its recurrence was that of a 22-year-old farmer, Charlie Johns, to a nine-year-old girl named Eunice Winstead. The controversial union took place on January 19, 1937, in rural Tennessee, officiated by Baptist preacher Walter Lamb. This marriage stirred public outcry as, at that time, there was no minimum age requirement for marriage in the state.
Johns paid a dollar to Lamb for conducting the ceremony, while Winstead misled her parents by claiming she was going to buy a doll. Johns misrepresented his young bride’s age to obtain a marriage license, although the community later discovered the truth that she was only nine years old. Eunice’s mother, Martha Winstead, eventually approved of the marriage because Johns was a landowner with 50 acres of mountain land and livestock, seen as a responsible farmer.
Despite the controversy and national attention from magazines like Life and Time, the couple remained married for many years. In response to public outrage, Tennessee swiftly enacted a law later in 1937 setting the minimum marriage age at 16, with a waiting period for girls under 18. The story of the nine-year-old bride became a focal point for advocates of reform against child marriage in the US.
Eunice briefly attended elementary school in the summer of 1937 but left due to disciplinary issues. The couple resided with Johns’ parents in Sneedville for a considerable period. In 1942, Eunice gave birth to their first child at the age of 14 and went on to have eight more children with Johns. Remarkably, despite the initial controversy, the couple stayed married for over six decades until their passing, with Johns dying in February 1997 and Eunice in August 2006.