56 Years of Being Married to my Best Friend

On May 30th my husband and I will celebrate our 56th wedding anniversary!  John 10:10 Jesus said, "I came that you may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows). Our 56 years of marriage have been a fulfillment of this scripture.

I met this handsome man on June 1, 1963, at the Music Box in Houghton Lake, Michigan. The Music Box was a place for teens and young adults to come together and dance to all the rock and roll music.

When Jerry asked me to dance he smiled one of the kindest and sincere smiles I have ever seen and I found myself dancing with him the rest of the evening. We danced to songs like "Let's Do the Twist" by Chubby Checker. There were two other songs that became "our" songs When I Fall in Love by the Lettermen and Can't Help Falling in Love with You by Elvis Presley. 

Before the evening was over I found out Jerry was an airman stationed at a base about 200 miles from where I was living
so we exchanged addresses and that was that.  It wasn't long before I received a letter from him and he wanted to come to see me! That started a two-year long-distance courtship. 

 

In December 1964, we became engaged and in the spring he took me to Iowa to meet his family. Our plan was to get married in Michigan in the fall. We had only been to his parent's house one day when Jerry got a call from his commanding officer that his leave was canceled and he needed to return to the base as they were going to ship him overseas.  That was not in our plan, but as we discussed it we decided to get married before he left and his commander gave him a few more days of leave. We called my parents and they gave us their blessing.

Jerry's parents lived in a farming community and it was amazing how his family and friends put together such a lovely wedding in three days. I had a lovely church wedding on Memorial Day, Sunday, May 30, 1965, at 7:30 am. The organist came in early to play for the wedding and they chose all the flowers that Sunday just for our wedding. After the wedding, Jerry's parents hosted a short reception with a beautiful wedding cake made by the mom of Jerry's best friend. When we changed clothes to leave we found out his siblings and their husbands had even decorated our car!

We were sent a copy of this newspaper article that was put in the Nevada, Iowa paper a week or so after our wedding.  The way everything came together was amazing and we are forever grateful for that small-town camaraderie that was able to make such a lovely wedding happen in three short days!