Post Scripts: Reminiscing

Hope you all had a Happy Easter despite the storm that hit Gallatin on Good Friday. Not only was it Easter but it was our 67th wedding anniversary, for which we were thankful. It was much more quiet than some of our anniversary celebrations, but we did have a lovely dinner at our daughter, Kathy Ann’s home, and had several phone calls, cards and e-mails from friends and relatives.

On April 4, 1943, I had come to Kansas City that morning by train from Ft. Smith, Ark., where I was stationed at Camp Chaffee as public information officer for the 14th Armored Division. I had become a lieutenant just two months before. Kathy met me at Union Station and we went to the home of a judge in Kansas City to get our marriage license. Kathy had made arrangements for this as I had to sign the license. The judge met us in his pajamas and robe. I’ll never forget that. Finally it was three in the afternoon when we were married at Kathy’s church.

After the marriage and reception at Kathy’s sister’s home where she had been living several years, we drove to Harrisonville and found a hotel. When we got to our room I discovered the manager had given me a dollar too much in change for our bill. I told Kathy how lucky we were to have that extra dollar but she promptly told me I had to take it back as that was no way to start a marriage. She’s been handling our money ever since.

We have good memories of celebrations we have had for special anniversaries. For instance we went to Hawaii for our 25th wedding anniversary in 1968. We had to go to the bank and borrow the money for that trip since both our daughters were in college at that time. I thought it was alright to do that since we had to borrow money earlier in our married life to get Kathy out of the hospital when she had three major surgeries one summer back in 1952.

When our 50th wedding anniversary came along we had several celebrations, one with both daughters as we traveled to Alabama accompanied by daughter Cindy where Kathy Ann lived at the time. Then we went to Kansas City on Palm Sunday, April 4, 1993, and attended the Meyer Boulevard United Methodist Church where we were married. We had a great celebration and lovely dinner at the home of a nephew that day with lots of relatives including Kathy’s brother who was in the wedding and her sister who provided the reception 50 years before. That wasn’t all the celebrating we did, however, as we took a great trip to Greece and a boat trip to many of the Greek islands.

Our traveling days are about over as we near 90 and 92, but we do have lots of special memories along with souvenirs, pictures and videos, of these special celebrations. We are thankful for each day we are able to get out of bed and do the things we need to do to survive. We know lots of people aren’t as lucky as we have been all these years. Although Kathy has had a number of surgeries, she seems to survive somehow with prayers and well wishes of so many. I have been lucky to have never been in the hospital except once during World War II when I had to enter for a minor series of tests which didn’t prove out to be anything at all.

My life as a journalist has been interesting. I first became interested in newspapers when I carried the Kansas City Journal Post in my early teens. When I passed a building where a newspaper was printed, and saw the white web of paper go into a big machine and come out with words on them, I was so in awe and decided I wanted to know more about the printing business. It was a good move! I ‘ve never been bored with my life’s work – and that’s the truth!