Katharina von Bora Philipp Melanchthon thought that Luther's marriage would hurt the Reformation because of potential scandal. Luther eventually came to the conclusion that "his marriage would please his father, rile the pope, cause the angels to laugh, and the devils to weep." Martin Luther married Katharina on June 13, 1525, before witnesses including Justus Jonas, Johannes Bugenhagen, and Barbara and Lucas Cranach the Elder.They held a wedding breakfast the next morning with a small company. Two weeks later, on June 27, they held a more formal public ceremony, presided over by Bugenhagen. Von Bora was 26 years old, Luther 41. The couple
Catharine Merrill 1867 and served on its board. The Catharine Merrill Club, an Indianapolis literary organization established in 1885, was named in her honor; Indianapolis Public Schools renamed Public School Number 25 the Catharine Merrill School in 1900; and Merrill's friends and former students endowed Butler University's Catharine Merrill Chair of English in 1907 (the endowment lapsed in 1930). Merrill was born on January 24, 1824, in Corydon, Indiana, to Samuel and Lydia Jane (Anderson) Merrill. Her father, a native of Vermont who attended Dartmouth College, was an early leading citizen of Indiana. He moved to Vevay, Switzerland County, Indiana, in 1816,