HOW DID I DECIDE TO GET MARRIED
What a question for someone who was married almost 50 years (we lacked seven months and three days making 50)!!! Plus, I’ve been a widow for 16 years. AND, you know by now my stories usually involve more than just the answer asked for.
I had seen Thomas Junkin around town and one time he came into the store with his mother Christmas shopping and touched the back of my neck with his cold fingers and WOW, and in church where I truly thought his little sister, Mary Helen, was his sweetheart. He was so attentive to her and sweet to all the family, I thought how lucky she was to have such a handsome beau. And then, I got to know that she was his sister.
I was a student aid to Ms. Junkin, school librarian. Ruth Junkin, gave me a ride to work sometimes after school.. So, in a way, my future sister-in-law introduced us. Her little brother, Thomas, had just gotten out of the U.S. Air Force and borrowed her car to job-hunt. On some of the days when he had her car, I would ride with them to the store where I worked.
Well this, then 17 year old, was so attracted to him that I could not say no when he asked at the homecoming dance to walk me home afterwards.
When he asked me for a date, I explained to him that I was engaged. I could not date him. And, at first, I didn’t because my fiance was in Germany and was coming home in the spring. Thomas finally wore me down and I did go out with him. When Johnny came home, he was hurt but by then, I was so deeply in love that I thought I could not live without sharing my life with Thomas Junkin.
Thomas got a job in Birmingham at Hayes Aircraft. Our plans were for me to get a job and move to Birmingham. However, when I graduated from high school in May, I was still just 17. The fact that I had worked for four years (plus the time I had worked for Daddy since I was 10 and babysat during those seven years too) made no difference to Birmingham ‘law’. They did not hire you unless you were 18 years old.
Thomas and I dated on week-ends. Mary and I went up for “Holiday on Ice” and it was great.
On July 4th, when he came home for the holiday, he had arranged for me to interview with a roommate of his at BTNB bank in the bookkeeping office. He had gotten a room in a boarding house. I spent the night with Dess and Woodrow Goodman, a cousin he had lived with and arranged at the YWCA to room there.
In about two weeks, Thomas was walking me and a few Gordo friends who worked in Birmingham back to the Y after a movie at the Alabama Theater when Patsy asked when we were getting married and he answered, “On August 11” and so that is when I decided to get married. I believe I decided TO get married when I first saw a pair of beautiful blue eyes, a tall (5 '10”) blond, handsome man. Oh, how glad I am!! Three children, three in-laws, six grandchildren and six in-laws AND 12 great grandchildren later...I praise God for the past 66 years.
No, I didn’t have to add the part about me breaking my fiance’s heart but I felt sad because I later learned that he married two weeks after I did to a girl he barely knew. They had twin boys soon after my son was born so I hope they had at least part of a happy life. They divorced later because when he died, he left a wife and little girl who was 18 months old and his first wife would have been a bit old for child bearing. I found out after he died that he had died at the VA Hospital across the street from my office. He had cancer. He was more like a brother than a sweetheart but had gotten a Dear John letter and since he and I liked each other so much, we decided to get married when he got home. Thomas ruined that!! As previously stated, I am so thankful he did!!!
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