One-Yard Wonders projects

Friday, December 24, 2010

A Christmas Eve Love Story

I love this picture. Grandpa Pud, newly born Mazy
and Grandma Maxine. January 2005.

Sixty-two years ago today, in St. Joseph, Missouri, my grandparents, Vanita Maxine Drake and Theron Foy Barnett, eloped and said, "I do."

This morning I told the boys that it was not only Christmas Eve but also Grandpa Pud and Grandma Maxine's anniversary of the day they were married. Mazy asked, "Did he take her on a honeycomb?" And I said, "A honeyMOON, you mean?" I told him I didn't know. So I called Grandma to wish them a happy anniversary and ask about their honeymoon.

It was 1948, and though they were both living in Iowa, they went to St. Joe for a romantic Christmas Eve wedding. Grandma was a young school teacher -- a graduate of Drake University. Grandpa was a carpenter -- having returned from his duty in World War II as a gunner on the U.S.S. Rocky Mount. I should have asked Grandma why they eloped. I have probably heard the story, but I have forgotten the reason.

For the next few years, they traveled with Grandpa's jobs. While living in Aiken, South Carolina, they had their first daughter, my mom, Katherine. That was in 1953. A couple years later, while living in the Florida Panhandle, they had their second daughter, Sherie.

Just last weekend while we were at the farm baking cookies, I heard a story about their life in Florida that I'd never heard before. Grandma Maxine was looking at Mazy's dangerous animals book with him. She told him about the time she nearly stepped on an alligator while she was living in Florida! Boy, did that impress Mazy. During that same time, she had to cut the head off a rattlesnake with her garden hoe! And still more, she found a scorpion in her bathtub! I don't think Mazy will ever look at his great-grandma the same way.

But back to my story, Grandma and I chatted for awhile and I asked her if they went on a honeymoon after they were married.

"No honey, we didn't. But I guess you could say every day has been our honeymoon," she said.

I love you, Grandpa and Grandma! Merry Christmas and happy 62nd anniversary! We'll see you on Christmas night!

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