Last week of September...

Before I share the week...

     Today is the 76th Wedding Anniversary Remembrance 

for my Mom & Dad.

Verna Huffaker and Arnold Albertson

August or September 1937

Photo taken in photo booth at the Jerome County Fair

"This is as close to a wedding photo that we have," Verna said.

         .........back on September 29, 1937, 
Arnold Albertson, age 24, 
said to Verna Huffaker, age 17:
"I dare you to elope."

Verna said: 
"I double dare you."

         They told their best friends...
Here are my Mom's words from her life story:
"An Idaho Girl" 

   A dare to get married: 
To elope or not to elope? …that is the question

            Arnold, evidently had gone to Hagerman to see his old girlfriend.  I’m pretty sure that he had, on the rebound, asked her if she would marry him because he knew that she was really in love with him.

            On Tuesday he come out after school and wanted to talk to me.

            “I dare you to get married,” he said.

            For some cotton pickin’ reason I said, “I double dare you.”  That was a popular saying.  So we decided to get married.

            I went in to the house and got ready.  I wore my new dress that I had bought with my cafe money, a two-piece blue knit dress. 

            We went and got Marie [Richardson] and Ralph [Rogers], our best friends, and told them what we were doing and wanted to know if they wanted to go and get married, too.  They did.  

            We drove down to Hagerman.  Arnold had to stop at this old girlfriend’s house, and it seemed like he was in there an hour talking to her.  When he come out we took off for Hailey.

            It was about a two-hour drive from Wendell to Hailey.  We couldn’t get our marriage licenses until the next morning when the court house opened.  Marie and I stayed together that night at a room in the Hiawatha Hotel.  Arnold and Ralph stayed together in another room.             

            That was the first time Marie and I had ever seen a big bathtub. 

            The next morning when we got up we decided we’d have some fun in that bathtub.  We filled it as far as it would go and we just sit there and splashed around and was having a good old time.

            We didn’t know that Arnold and Ralph had gone to a jewelry store in town to each buy a gold wedding ring.  The rings were the same.  They cost $7.00 each.  [That would have been a little over two day’s pay.]  This is the wedding band I still wear.

            When they come back, we didn’t hear them knock on our door so they thought we had backed out and gone home.  They went down to the bus and train stations to see if we’d been there.

            By the time they got back, we were dressed and ready.  We ate breakfast at the hotel cafe then went to the court house to get the license.  When Arnold saw the line for the birthdate he whispered to me, “You better put 1919.”

            “I already did,” I whispered back.

            We didn’t have to have a blood test at that time.  The license probably cost a dollar.

It was about one o’clock by the time we went to the Episcopalian minister’s home.

            I almost backed out.  I can remember going up that walk, reaching down to pick up a rock, and thinking, “Do I really want to do this?”   I can remember during the ceremony thinking, “I wish my Dad would walk through that door and stop me.”

            The minister’s wife played the piano.  Arnold and I were married, then Ralph and Marie.

            I loved Arnold but by then I was a scrambled egg.  I had four guys that I thought I liked but I was so overwhelmed that Arnold could feel that way.  Arnold was head over heals in love with me.  In fact, it kinda bowled me over to think he loved me so much that he cried when he thought he was losing me.  I couldn’t believe that anyone could feel that way.  I thought it was just awesome that he would love me that much to cry if I wanted to go with somebody else.

            When we got to my house after the wedding there was this letter from Harold, signed “Love, Harold.”   I had to sit down and write to him that I had gotten married that day.  I often wondered what he thought when he got that letter?

            In his letter Harold said  “maybe you will get your feelings back for Arnold,” or something like that because we had talked about it.  I had told Harold I wasn’t sure that I was in love with Arnold anymore.  Harold and I hadn’t even gotten past the holding-hands stage. 

                We went to tell Mother and Dad we was married.  Mother was out hanging up clothes and I just walked out there and told her.  I guess they could have had the marriage annulled since I was not yet 18 years old.

            “Well, if I’d known you wanted to get married, we could have had a garden wedding for you here,” Mother said.  

            Then we four newlyweds drove to Twin Falls.  We went to a movie at the Orpheum theater downtown.  I don’t remember what the movie was.  Arnold and Ralph checked us into rooms at the Rogerson Hotel a couple of blocks east of the theater. 

            Arnold had drawn his next week’s salary from Owen at the Sport Shop, and we’ve been a week behind ever since.

Wedding Shower

            The next week my mutual class gave us a wedding shower at Mom and Dad’s house.  Arnold drove down to Hagerman and brought his mother to it.  She just sat on a chair toward the back the whole time without saying a word.  My mother got a little upset because she said Blanche hadn’t put forth an effort to talk or get acquainted with anyone.  However, I learned it was because she was so extremely shy around people.  She didn’t even talk much around her own children.

            I knew that the school didn’t allow married students so I went and got my deposit for my locker.  I think it was a dollar and a half.

            Mother and Dad moved to the Basinger place at this time...

And they lived happily ever after . . . or mostly happily.
They were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple 
on June 14, 1961,
the day Walt and I were sealed.
My Dad passed away on February 6, 1982,
at age 69 of colon cancer.
My Mom was a widow for 31 years.
She passed away two months ago on July 26, 2013, at age 93.
NOW THEY ARE YOUNG AGAIN
AND TOGETHER FOR ETERNITY!
FAMILIES ARE FOREVER

This is our family is June 1962.
Mom, age 42; Dad age 50, my sister age 13, and me age 23.
Walt and I had driven from St. Louis to be with our parents in Idaho
for a vacation during our first wedding anniversary and
after Walt's third year of medical school.

I spent two hours after posting the above, writing about our full week of Sep. 23 to Sep. 29... had 21 photos.

     And now it's vanished.

            Computers! Love 'em and hate 'em. Can't live with them and can't live without them.  Now I don't have the energy at 10:17 to post any more tonight.  It was a great journal post.

            But, oh well, that's life.

                        Hope you've had a great week.

                              Goodnight.