On June 10, 1909, nineteen-year-old Emma Sullivan stepped on a rusty nail just one week before her wedding to Thomas Murphy. The nail punctured deeply into her foot. Emma washed the wound with water, wrapped it in cloth, and carried on with her wedding preparations. Too busy to see a doctor, she ignored the pain, determined to focus on the upcoming ceremony. By June 15, five days after the injury, Emma began to feel stiffness in her jaw. At first, she assumed it was stress from the wedding and thought little of it. But by evening, her jaw had locked completely. The bacteria from the nail had caused tetanus, releasing toxins that attacked her nervous system. Her mother called for a doctor, who immediately recognized the dreaded lockjaw. He knew the disease was almost always fatal once symptoms appeared. Emma would not live to see her wedding day. On June 16, Thomas visited Emma as her condition worsened. Her body grew rigid, her back arched, and she suffered agonizing muscle spasms. Unable to speak, she cried and made sounds through clenched teeth. Thomas held her hand, and she squeezed back, trying to communicate. Both understood she was dying. With the wedding scheduled for the next day, Thomas made a heartbreaking decision: he would marry Emma that night. At her bedside, Emma lay rigid, her jaw locked shut. The priest allowed the ceremony. When asked if she took Thomas as her husband, Emma blinked once to say yes. Thomas spoke his vows through tears, placed a ring on her stiff finger, and kissed her locked jaw. In that moment, he became her husband, even as she was dying before him. Emma passed away at 4:30 a.m. on June 17, 1909—the morning of her wedding day. She and Thomas had been married for only twelve hours. Her final hours were filled with violent spasms and suffocating seizures, yet she remained conscious throughout, aware of her fate, aware it was her wedding day, and aware that Thomas was now her widower. When guests arrived at the church that morning, they were told the bride had died. The wedding became a funeral. Dressed in their wedding clothes, they attended Emma’s burial instead of her ceremony. She was laid to rest in her wedding dress, stained with blood from the spasms that had torn her body. Thomas stood at her grave in his wedding suit, a husband for less than twelve hours, already a widower. Emma’s mother never forgave herself, believing she should have insisted Emma see a doctor. Proper care could have prevented tetanus. Instead, a rusty nail claimed her daughter’s life in just seven days. Thomas never remarried. He wore his wedding ring until his death in 1954 at age sixty-four, faithful to Emma’s memory for forty-five years. Before he died, Thomas told his nephew the story: “I married Emma June 16, 1909. She was dying from lockjaw. Couldn’t speak. Body rigid. Jaw locked shut. She blinked yes when the priest asked if she’d take me as husband. She died twelve hours later. Our wedding day. I buried her in her wedding dress. We had twelve hours of marriage. She spent them dying. I spent them watching her die. I wore this ring forty-five years. Never took it off.” Emma’s grave bears the inscription: *“Emma Sullivan Murphy, 1890–1909, Beloved Daughter, Bride, and Wife, Married and Died June 1909.”* Thomas commissioned the tombstone as the only memorial to their twelve-hour marriage. When he died in 1954, he was buried beside her, reunited after forty-five years—together forever, as they had planned on their wedding day.