Showing posts with label 50th wedding anniversary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 50th wedding anniversary. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

55 Years!



Our 55th, as in every anniversary, passed during Christmastide.

We were married three days after Christmas in 1963 after dating for 11 months. Choosing each other then was only the beginning, a glimmer of what grew to become intentional, tenacious choosing as years unfolded. Unlike many weddings now, we had no wedding planner, no announcing for saving a date, no plans for a honeymoon. We chose the date because we decided we wanted to begin our life together then instead of waiting until after I finished my degree in nursing at Oklahoma Baptist University 5 months later. We decided this in October, a little over 2 months away from our wedding. Joe was recently discharged from the army, had a job with Petty Geophysical on a field crew that was at the time located in southwestern Oklahoma. I was finishing a degree;I was in Oklahoma City. He had made many trips to Oklahoma City in his Karman Ghia so we knew it was not a great commute. The plan was for him to find another job in Oklahoma City and move there.  The announcement of our engagement appeared in the Jacksonville paper on my birthday, November 14.





The timing was historical. On the day he was to arrive in the City, as I walked through the nurses' residence on my way back from John Wesley Hospital which was adjacent, I found a cluster of students in the large room at the front where the only television in the building was located. Unusual, because most of us had classes or shifts to work at the hospital. As I paused, I learned that our nation's president, John F. Kennedy, had been assassinated while in Dallas, TX. Many in the room, including me, were in tears. So November 22, 1963 became forever a date to be remembered. But I also remember it because Joe was on the way. We would find a place where he could live, he would find a job, we would be married very soon.  Most brides have many things on their list to  check off in the weeks before their marriage. I was no exception, but my list included exams for that semester and completing the construction of my wedding gown. I had made one trip with Mother to Tyler to try on wedding dresses, but buying one was out of the question. So I sketched one I had admired, with Mother's help selected some patterns, fabric, lace, and put my sewing machine to work.  



When Joe and I went to Texas for Thanksgiving weekend,  my mother and I cut out patterns from the lace, appliqued them to the slim skirt of the dress and circular train, and stitched on what seemed like hundreds of seed pearls.



Details of my wedding day drift through and settle. The arrival of my best friend and maid of honor, Jo Rita, along with Mary June and Sue and my sister Janice. Laughter. Last minute alterations and adjustments to my dress because I lost so much weight. Sugaring inexpensive Christmas bells for a topper to the cake my mother's friend had made. Having a hamburger for a quick supper. Wearing a plaid shirtwaist dress and realizing it was time to put on the dress! Hearing that Joe and his best man, our friend, Eddie Ballard had gone to Tyler to a movie the night before. They saw Spencer's Mountain with Maureen O'Hara.  No bachelor party, no bridesmaid weekend somewhere. No elaborate reception and dinner. The wedding rings we had ordered from a local jeweler were lost in the mail! Judy and Arnold (Joe's brother) let us borrow theirs! It was a Saturday night. When the organ chimed 7 times, my nervous Daddy and I started down the aisle toward my choice, my love. 



The phrase in our wedding vows "I take you..." means I choose you. The choice has been made every day since. 


I still do!



















Wednesday, December 28, 2016

53 Years, Remembering!

Proud parents of the groom.  Ben and Kristen's wedding 2008

                             
              Historical John Wesley Love home in Jacksonville, our home 1981-1982

Another anniversary



Retirement for Joe after 52 years in the oil industry

Recipe box Joe made for me our first Christmas 1964, Corvallis, Oregon

Our 3 little boys and their Gingerbread House 1973

Faith, always.

Reminders of our life in Jakarta, Indonesia (at my talk to the children at Shady Oak Christian School)

Angel and Bella

Our antique rose in the garden on Greenhaven. Getting ready to plant some here.

Tickets from so many performances, games, concerts.

Our wedding group.  December 28, 1963

Happy!

Our mission statement for our Sugar Land house, working on one for our home with B&K in Richmond.

Homeward Bound.  A magnolia leaf.

Joe and me as Jacob and Rachel, innkeepers for so many years in Experiencing Christmas, FBC Richmond.

Snowflakes we cut for our first Christmas tree in Oregon.

So many happy times in the porch swing together and with our granddaughters.

Today is our 53rd wedding anniversary.  Last night and this morning we mused and remembered all those years ago and the beginning.  Things like what we did the evening before our wedding day (Joe and his best man went to a movie - Spencer's Mountain.  I only remember being at home, tweaking the decorations I made to top our wedding cake, trying on my wedding dress and working out last minute fitting details such as pinning a tea towel around my waist to hold up the heavy train and keep it from sagging!)  It was a happy and exciting time, but I do not remember feeling stressed.

Today, many lovely weddings are planned at least a year in advance, with many decisions and projects involved.  The stress, as well as the cost, can rise to uncomfortable levels.  Someone asked me just this week about the issues involved with having a Christmastime wedding, with so many other things on the calendar, and subsequent years when the anniversary might be eclipsed in all the Christmas celebration. It is true, our anniversary falls 3 days after Christmas and our celebrations have not been lavish (other than the beautiful 50th-anniversary dinner given to us by our family) - but I would not change anything.  I love Christmas - the meaning, the music, the colors, the family gathering. That translates so very well into the marriage celebration.  We decided to have our wedding in October, only a little over 2 months before it happened!  We chose to keep costs to a minimum and meaning to maximum. I made my wedding gown, sewing in between studying for nursing finals, and bringing the last pearls to sew on the lace train for Mother to help. I laugh when I tell you I crafted my pillbox (a la Jacquelyn Kennedy) hat that held my veil from the end of an Oatmeal box, covered in satin and pearls and made a puffy muff to hold my small bouquet.  Bridesmaids wore cranberry faille coat dresses with white organdy collars and carried a single candle with a tiny nosegay of white flowers. We used a bank of green magnolia leaves from a wedding held the day before instead of flower arrangements in the church, and our reception was in the fellowship hall where punch, cake, nuts, and buttermints were on the table. We had no honeymoon, choosing instead to drive back to Oklahoma City in a snow storm the day after a night in a motel in Dallas. We had school for me and a job hunt for Joe to get back to. And it was thrilling and wonderful and the most beautiful time and place and way to get married.

Yes, it makes me smile to think of the beginning, but oh, the memories all through these years.   This is what makes me weep and smile at the same time. The years have brought so much happiness and fullness. Faith, yes. fLove, yes. Friendship, yes. Hard work, yes.  Sad times, yes.  Laughter, oh yes. Three of the finest sons any parents could possibly have. And now the women they chose who are our daughters. Grandchildren, and more love. Pride, yes. Loss, yes.  Stretching, yes.  Tragedy and pain, yes, that too.  Perseverance, without doubt.  Glorious joy, yes.  Contentment, yes. Illness, yes.  Hope, then, and now.

I chose a few random photos that are markers for me of a life and work together, of love.

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Celebration

Our sons and their wives gathered family and friends for a lovely celebration of our 50th wedding anniversary. We loved every minute of an evening full of hugs, fond memories, photographs from 50 years of adventure, good food, and gratitude overflowing.  Our friend Aija played violin music and our son Ben quoted this favorite Shakespeare sonnet.  We have so many reminders that we are surrounded by love!

 Sonnet 116           William Shakespeare


Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
     If this be error and upon me proved,
     I never writ, nor no man ever loved.