Paul's Café

Paul's Café was a restaurant and bar located at 213-215 19th Street North in the early 1900s and 1910s. It was operated by Paul Gilardoni.

On February 11, 1912 Dorothy Opperman, a 20-year-old singer from Atlanta, Georgia who was appearing at the Best Theatre with the Hendrix Belle-Isle company, met a traveling salesman named J. B. Debnam of Suffolk, Virginia. The couple, along with her sister, Florence, and another man, J. G. McCormick, met for supper at Paul's Café, during which time the party consumed several bottles of beer. At some point Debman dared Opperman to marry him. When she agreed, the group secured a marriage license from D. C. Ball, a deputy probate clerk, and then awakened a justice of the peace to conduct the ceremony.

The next day, Mrs Debman filed a bill of complaint in chancery court seeking an annulment of the marriage, which had been undertaken while under the influence of drink and in jest. Chancellor Alfred Benners adjudged the marriage valid and denied the annulment.

References

• R. L. Polk & Co.'s Birmingham Directory 1905 (1905) Volume 20. Birmingham: R. L. Polk & Co.
• "Wedding Too Real For Bride" (February 18, 1912) The Tuscaloosa News
• "J. B. Debnam Is Now Married" (February 22, 1912) Winston-Salem Journal