The 28th of October was our wedding anniversary, No. 60!
Where did that girl of 17 and boy of 18 go?
Nowhere! They are still here, same heart, same person, body somewhat used.
In my mind’s eye I can still see clearly through the years at that bright clear Sunday at the Second Baptist Church. There were three bridesmaids, three groomsmen and, of course, the bride and groom. And there were about 75 people there to witness our love promises. I still have my wedding dress, though yellowed with age, hanging in a closet at our house. My, it was so small!!
There was no big honeymoon cruise or trip of any kind. We saved and went on a short trip in the following summer to New Orleans and called this our “delayed honeymoon.”
We were just two poor kids from poor families, although we never realized it, who were so in love that we thought we couldn’t wait to begin our life together. And when I say poor, I am describing this as humble and meager means. Roy was working for Sunflower as a produce man, and I was working part time as I finished out my senior year of high school for State Farm Insurance. He made $40 a week, and I made about $15. We thought we were doing well. We ate lots of sandwich spread sandwiches and peas and Treat meat, but we never even thought about it. We drove a 1957 Chevrolet, and we lived in a camper trailer in a local trailer park here in town. I finished my senior year and went to work full time, and we opened a bank account. We were moving up!
I remember moving into a real house, very small, but a house. We bought furniture on credit and paid monthly, but we had our own furniture. We were eating a little better, though not much as I could only cook a few things. We were both brought up to know how to work, and it was just natural to continue that practice.
We bought our first house four years later, and Roy was drafted into the Army, and I was by myself for the first time in forever. We survived, and he came home, and we begin again. He was still working for Sunflower, and we bought our first store in 1974 and the rest is history.
Would we change the way we did things way back then?
No, not at all. We married as children, and we grew up together. It wasn’t always easy, but it was not always hard either. There have been so, so many good times that overshadow the bad. And we still love each other just as we did when we made those love pledges 60 years ago.
We ate lots and lots of cornbread with all those peas, and here is my recipe that I have used for sixty years:
2 cups self-rising cornmeal
½ cup of self-rising flour
¼ cup of sugar
1 egg
¾ cup of buttermilk
Melt ½ stick of real butter in an iron skillet, and pour about half of it into the cornbread mixture. Mix well, and pour into hot skillet with rest of melted butter, and bake 400 degrees for 20 minutes.
