True Love...

I adore this picture...

My mother and father got married in 1938. She was 18 years old, and he was 26. They both look so young in this picture. They had a really good marriage, and three lovely children... well.. two lovely children and me, but who's counting (grin). My mother gave up several scholarship chances to go to UCLA to be near my father. She didn't stay long at UCLA, because, as she put it in a letter to her father, "It has become too much of an emotional strain for us to be near each other and wanting each other ..."

She didn't ask her parent's permission. She told them what she was going to do. She was a headstrong child in those days... hell, she was a headstrong child until her first stroke... hmm.... in many ways she still is a headstrong child...

They spent a lot of time at his parent's house until she went back to Mobile to live with her mother and stepfather until the wedding. She writes to her father about their compatibility, "Ed's folks like me a lot and I've been in close contact with him while staying at their house... He's more irresistible when he has just awakened than any other time. He has wavy hair and it gets all towsled up and I just love it. He doesn't snore (now don't get any ideas... they were in separate rooms you little trouble makers!). He's seen me in the morning before my hair is braided when it looks like a pig pen and he just messes it up some more and seems to get a kick out of that."... She goes on and on.

They were hoping to build a house under the Federal Housing Act, which they estimated would cost them $32 a month (!!). They ended up buying an 'already built one', probably because of the war and the lack of building materials.. I'm guessing here.

She writes that her mother had" accepted him right into the family and written him some very lovely letters".. in truth, her mother tried to talk her out of the marriage, and told my father that she thought it was a big mistake... seems she thought he was a 'cripple' because of his back. I don't know that Mom ever knew that...

It didn't matter...

It had nothing to do with her, and everything to do with them...

"I give to you and you give to me..

true love,

true love"...

oh yeah... and I love her hat and shoes and dress..

and his white shoes! omg!