"If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story." -Orson Welles

No, I do not want only happy endings. What I want is for the stories to be shared, to never have to stop because the story teller is no longer telling. I want stories to be somewhere for us to look back on, to smile or cry about, to remember - both our own memories and those of others around us.

Saturday, June 6, 2015

65 Years

Varden and Lu Loganbill, June 5, 2015
(I'm not yet sure how exactly to format these stories. I suppose it will depend some on how the conversation goes. So this one will be basically a transcript of what I recorded, with other information added as I remember. This blog, and its format, will take shape over time. Right now I'm more concerned with starting to get the stories down than with the aesthetics.)

My grandparents, Varden and Lu Loganbill celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary on May 31, 2015. We recently had dinner to celebrate, and a few stories of their wedding and early days of their marriage started.

Grandpa started with this, "One of the things I remember about our wedding was Fernan decided he was going to take over and started giving instructions. That made Lu so mad."

"Sounds like Fernan," quipped Blair.

"He was telling everybody when they could walk in and oh, it made me so mad!" -Grandma

Grandpa remembered that "Uncle Albert was there and that was good."

"I had to go to school. Summer school. We got married and summer school started the next week. Once the summer school session was over, then I went to California with mom to Denard's wedding."

{At Bethel, you were in summer school?}

"No, at KU Medical School. They decided to separate us into four groups. Three groups were in school every quarter and one fourth of the students had off. And ours started right away."

"We lived in Lawrence." -Grandma

"In Lawrence we had an apartment, an upstairs apartment. It was halfway up the hill." -Grandpa

"Did you drive to work?" Grandpa asked Grandma.

"No, I walked."

{Where did you work, Grandma?}

"Singer sewing machine company."

{What did you do there?}

"Some book work and also sales."

Grandpa added that "They took advantage of students' wives. The pay was not very good. There were a lot of people who wanted jobs."



I continued the conversation after supper with a few questions of my own...

{Did you have any attendants?}

"My sister Kathleen, and his brother Denard. Well, see, we had to hurry. We couldn't really plan a large wedding."

{How long was it between when you got engaged and when you got married?}

"We never got engaged," Grandpa said.

{So how long between when you decided to get married and?}

"Actually, I think about our sophomore year in college... It wasn't 'Will you go with me to this or that?' it was 'What time shall I pick you up?'" -Grandpa

"I mean, we just... somewhere along we decided I'd apply to medical school, and it turned out I started right away, didn't have the summer off, so... she made her own wedding dress. We graduated one day and got married the next day and six days later medical school started. At that time they had the first year in Lawrence. Now they have all four years in Kansas City." -Grandpa

"So after a year we had to move again." -Grandma

{Did you work when you lived in Kansas City, Grandma?}

"Yes. I worked at the medical center, in the x-ray department, typing results. Then I also did the iodine uptakes. It was just a lab. I could just be trained to do that one lab."

"We got out of medical school with about $500 debt," said Grandpa.

"And we lived just a block west of the front door of the medical school so we didn't need to drive, " Grandma added.

"We lived with a spinster lady. She had her apartment in the back and we had ours. We shared a kitchen. Lu did all the cooking and we paid for all the groceries. She did have her television in our living room which was right next to my study, which was kind of bothersome. But it was a good arrangement."

"The only thing we had to drive to was church. And we went to a Brethern Church in Kansas City, Kansas. The first time my folks came to see us, we said 'We're going to church.' Right at the end of the block was a Methodist Church. We buzzed right by there and buzzed around and went all the way to Kansas City, Kansas. My dad said he counted seven churches that we passed up just to go to that little church!" -Grandma

"That was one of the high points for us. We had a small choir and a small church. I think seven of us were Mennonite - "

"Yes" - Grandma

We had a Mennonite fellowship in Kansas City. Four of us were General Conference, a couple were old Mennonite and one was MB. We kept that relationship until we started dying off. At the time they didn't have a Mennonite Church in Kansas City." - Grandpa

"We still corresponded with a couple. Well, at Christmastime anyway, " Grandma smiled.

"One couple that was from Church of the Brethern. After he graduated, he was a missionary to Africa for a couple of years, then came back and settled in Idaho. I used to talk to him all the time." -Grandpa

{and that is where the story ends... for now.}

No comments:

Post a Comment