(October 14, 1940 - 1942) (separated) (1 child) died 1945
Aged 18, she met a young man from New Madrid, Missouri named Louis Till. He worked at the Argo Corn Company, was an amateur boxer, and was popular with women. Her parents disapproved, thinking the charismatic Till was "too sophisticated" for their daughter. At her mother's insistence, she broke off their courtship. But the persistent Till won out, and they married on October 14, 1940. Both were 18 years old. Their only child, Emmett Louis Till, was born 9 months later. They separated in 1942 after Mamie found out he had been unfaithful, and later choked her to unconsciousness, to which she responded by throwing scalding water at him. Eventually, she obtained a restraining order against him. After violating this repeatedly, a judge forced him to choose between enlistment in the U.S. Army or facing jail time. Choosing the former, he joined the Army in 1943.
In 1945, Mamie received notice from the Department of Defense informing her, without a full explanation, that her husband had been killed during army service in Italy. She later said that she was only told that his death was due to "willful misconduct" and noted that bureaucracy had frustrated her attempts to learn anything more. In fact, Louis Till had been court-martialed on charges of the murder of an Italian woman and the rape of two others in Civitavecchia, in Italy. After a lengthy investigation, he was convicted and was executed by hanging near Pisa on July 2, 1945. But the details of Till's execution only fully emerged ten years later, after the murder of his son Emmett and the subsequent trial for that crime.