Married 59 Years!
On June 11, 1966, just one week after our graduation from Rice University in Houston, Steve and I were married in Borger, Texas, 650 miles to the north. What a busy week that was! After the long drive home on Sunday, I had only a few days to bid farewell to the town of Phillips, where I was born. On Tuesday, I visited Carol Cochran‘s family. Carol was the one of my “friends from First Grade,” whom I had asked to be a bridesmaid.
On Wednesday my brother Harry arrived from New York City and on Thursday, my brother Joel brought his family from St. Louis. Steve had asked them to serve as ushers. Dear friends Marjo and Lilburn Hettick came from Bartlesville, Oklahoma. My former piano partner, Robert Richardson, traveled from his home in Toronto, Canada, with his wife Sylvia, who sang “The Song of Ruth” during the ceremony.
Friday, Steve’s family arrived from Odessa and Decatur; the rehearsal dinner at Hotel Borger, began at 6:00 pm
Saturday, June 11, my family hosted a picnic in the Phillips Park at noon; our wedding was at First Presbyterian Church in Borger at 4:00 pm. Following a reception at the Church; we departed at 5:30pm to spend our first night in Amarillo.
Sunday, we drove 376 miles and moved into our first apartment in Dallas!
Steve started work at Texas Instruments on the morning of June 13th. I got a job at a Dallas real estate development firm, which later helped me understand Steve’s passion for that field. On September 1. we resumed our too-brief honeymoon by driving from Dallas to Cambridge, Massachusetts for Steve to enroll at Harvard Business School. Groomsman Joe Simmons, was headed for graduate studies at the University of Rhode Island in Providence and drove along with us. He drove his own car, but occasionally shared a motel room with us so we could all save money. Our “real” honeymoon was in 1967, when Mobil Oil put us up for a week in a nice hotel in Paris on our way to and from Steve’s summer job with Mobil Oil in Istanbul, Turkey.
Did we take all our wedding presents in that U-Haul trailer we pulled with us to Boston? Our guests had been most generous to supply us with eight place settings of Wedgwood china and Gorham sterling. No, we took only clothes and a few practical things for our unfurnished apartment at Peabody Terrace on the banks of the Charles River. Not until we returned two years later with Steve’s MBA did we claim those tangible gifts. But every June I make sure we have fresh strawberries like those that Dad’s co-worker, Mr. Denman, delighted me with on the morning of my wedding.
Adventures have continued ever since–jobs, kids, houses, trips with good friends and cousins, and time to enjoy music, reading, and golf. We celebrated our 50th anniversary in great style, as you can see in this post. This year, I recorded Felix Mendelssohn’s “Duetto” to express in music my appreciation for Steve.
The opening melody in the treble clef is soon answered by a voice in the bass clef. After sharing their experiences and working out their differences, the two voices soon come together in a strong joint statement of their overall purpose. Listeners may hear a few mistakes along the way, but this piece expresses the joy I have living with Stephen Barnard Smith.
On June 25, two weeks after our anniversary, we joined our daughter and granddaughter and eleven cousins on a safari in Kenya. Here we are relishing yet another adventure together.
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