Dawn Reader: My Parents: Newlyweds, October 12, 1939

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

My Parents: Newlyweds, October 12, 1939

my parents' wedding
October 12, 1939
University Place Christian Church
Enid, Oklahoma

Last fall--not long after what would have been my parents' 76th wedding anniversary (my father died in late November 1999)--I was rummaging through some old family file folders and found a story I'd known very little about.

They'd married on October 12, 1939. (BTW: I never tire of telling the story that Joyce and I married in 1969; our son, in 1999.) And after the wedding--I knew--Dad, who had recently become an ordained minister for the Disciples of Christ, took a job in Denver. And that's all I really knew about it--save for one fairly lurid family story about a late-night rat in the apartment and a (mostly naked) Dad defending his Guinevere with a mop handle. (Wish I had video.)

Anyway, in that file folder I found some details I'd not ever known: In a fairly lengthy account of their wedding published in the Jackson (Ohio) Herald (no date--but it must have been very soon after the wedding; my mother's father was from Jackson) I read that Dad and Mom were going to Denver where Dad would serve at the South Broadway Christian Church--and that they would live at 2 Lincoln Street.

Well ...

I hopped online (we always hop online, you know, not leap, though that has a nicer sound--a bit alliterative) and found that the South Broadway Christian Church is still standing, still affiliated with the Disciples of Christ. (Link to church website.)

I wrote to one of the current ministers there (Dustin Adkins), and over the next few weeks he did some research for me; I was stunned by his kindness.

He sent me some pictures of the building, told me that Dad had been the assistant minister there, sent me pictures of 2 Lincoln Street, went to the library where he found in the city directory they'd had a second, later residence in Denver, as well: 435 South Sherman--so he went there, as well, and found there was not a house at that address but that it could have been an error in the directory, for there was a house right next door--437--which seems large enough that it might have contained an apartment, perhaps upstairs, with the 435 address. He also checked the Sanborn fire insurance maps and sent a photocopy.

Anyway, we've stayed in touch, on and off, and here are some of the photos he sent me, filling in some missing pieces in our family history.

Oh, the minister was not certain, but it's likely that Dad and Mom left in late 1941 or early 1942: Pearl Harbor, WW II. Dad became a Chaplain, served in both theaters during the war, won a Bronze Star for bravery in action.

The first two images--the exterior and interior of the church--are from the web. The others, from Dustin Adkins..