We were young. I was a month shy of 20; he was almost 23 -- an older man! But he was handome and suave -- and he had a good job! We hit it off. Okay, I was swept off my feet, even tho the night we met he tried to convince me that he was a priest! I saw through that line but not all the rest; he proposed and we "ran off" and got married.
We only ran to the next county and were married in the Methodist Church with his friend, Hollis, to stand up with him and Little Jan, with me. We chose the next county because we didn't think anyone would get the Adair County newspaper and in those days the marriage licenses were published weekly -- and sometimes hit the print before the actual wedding. Later, we found out his Grandmother Antonia did indeed take the paper but, unusual for her, she hadn't read the marriage license entries!
We met with the minister ahead of time and were "counseled". The minister gave us both one piece of advice. To me, he advised, when my husband stomps off muttering, DO NOT ask him to repeat what he said. And his bit of wisdom offered up to my husband -- has been lost to the annals of time! However, one more thing he told us that I remember is that it is NOT always a 50 / 50 partnership -- that marriage sometimes requires one partner to put in more then their 50%. Sometimes it is 25 / 75 or 75 /25. It should equal out over the long haul tho -- it should average 50 / 50.
I sewed my flocked white, A-line dress, packed my bags, pots and pans, linens and my pillow and on July 17, 1970, he picked me up in his '64 black Plymouth Fury and off we drove to our destiny.
It was midafternoon on a hot summer day. His cousin Mike heard the ol' man was getting married. Not willing to believe it without seeing it, Mike came along on good intention and no invite and the wedding party was the minister, the bride and groom, two attendants and Mike, alone, in the front pew.
After a trip to Shagbark to announce our marriage to the folks and then to Prescott to meet my father-in-law for the first time and be reintroduced to his mother (I had met her once, on the street), we left for our honeymoon. Arriving at his apartment, he carried me over the threshold and thus we started our married life -- in a one room efficiency apartment in Sioux City, Iowa with a hide-a-way bed and the kitchen(ette) in the former closet. We had 6 honeymoon days together before he left me. So, he wooed me, whisked me away 180 miles from home and Mother, then abandoned me and went away to summer Guard camp! Don't know how he finangled it but he got a weekend pass and showed up on my (his) doorstep unannounced in the middle of the night. But that is a story for another day.
And, 35 years later, here we are, 4 children, 2 sons-in-laws, a daughter-in-law, 5 grandchildren, 3 states, 5 or 6 towns and several professions later and I am reminded of a line from a favorite book, Except for Me and Thee. The father, at the holiday dinner table, looks at the family seated all around and to paraphrase Jess, "I've been too busy to notice -- but look what I have begun."
