Seventy-two Years Ago Today

 My parents (Red and Wathada Thomas) met and married in 1953. 

Wathada wrote:

I met Red right at the beginning of 1953, just after the Christmas holidays.  We started dating and by that summer we were talking about getting married. 

[NOTE: I can't find where I have it written down, but I remember being told that Dad was on a date with another girl when he met Mom. The first thing he said to her was "Hello Sunshine."

I have it in the back of my mind that this is the girl Dad was with when he met Mom. I wouldn't stake my life on it, though. Anyway, back to the story...]

When Red and I were dating, we had a routine of things we did pretty regularly. Almost every Saturday night in the summertime, we went to dance at Crystal Palace in Coloma.  It was THE place to go.  There was a bar area where you had to be 21 years or older to enter.  But they had most of the tables in other areas and around the outside of the dance floor.  We could go there and that’s where most of the people we knew sat anyway, no matter what their age was.  Those tables were just the best places to sit.  They had the biggest of the “big bands” at Crystal Palace all summer long every summer.  We have danced to the music of all the big bands there at Crystal Palace.  

On summer Friday nights while Red and I were dating we usually went to the Sunset Drive-in Theater between Hartford and Watervliet.  The first movie they showed on Saturday nights was nearly always a western, and very often it was a Roy Rogers movie.  Red loved Roy Rogers and does to this day.  He would watch that movie, and then he would get over in the back seat of his car and go to sleep.  I would sit in the front seat and watch the second movie, which would be a regular movie.  When the movie was over, I would drive myself home in Red’s car and wake him up so he could drive himself home to Bangor.  Red had taught me how to drive, but I didn’t have a driver’s license.  I didn’t get a license until I was 19 years old and we had been married for two years.

Well, Red worked on construction then and was tired after working all day.  And sometimes I think he had to work on Saturday too.  So even though that doesn’t sound like a very exciting date, it worked for Red and me.

PHOTO: Wedding supper, the day after the wedding.

PHOTO: Wedding supper. L-R - Jay Bridges, Annie Hicks, Ulysses Hicks, Bernice Bridges holding Cindy, Cleffie Burford, Bill Thomas, Eileen Thomas.

(Annie and Ulys are my great-grandparents. Cleffie is their daughter, my grandmother, Wathada's mother. Bernice is Cleffie's sister, Jay is her husband, Cindy is their daughter. Bill Thomas is my grandfather, Red's father. Eileen Thomas is Red's sister-in-law, wife of his brother Bernarde Thomas.)

I don't know who took the picture. Probably Christie Thomas (Bill's wife, my grandmother.) I don't know who Annie is staring at across the table. Probably Bernarde.

There aren't any pictures of the wedding itself. Here is a blow-by-blow description of the event, written by my mother:

Red and I got married on Saturday, September 12, 1953 at the Methodist Church in Hartford, Michigan.  We got married inside that church just to satisfy Red’s mother.  She was a member of that church but never attended any services.  She belonged to one of the women’s clubs there.  We had a very small wedding.  We only had our parents there, my brothers and Bernice and Jay.  Red’s brother, Bernarde was his best man and his wife, Eileen was my matron of honor.  I was barely acquainted with Eileen, and I wanted to ask Bernice to be my matron of honor.  But when Red’s mother asked me who was going to “stand up” with me and I told her I was going to have Bernice, she told me I had to have Eileen because Red was having Bernarde.  She said it wouldn’t be right to have anyone but Eileen. Naturally, I kept my mouth shut and had Eileen for my matron of honor.  I felt like it was Red’s mother’s wedding – not mine. 

Our wedding day was very strange.  Red and I had got our blood tests done just before the Labor Day weekend.  Somebody made a mistake and Red’s blood didn’t get refrigerated so it spoiled.  So we had to do that again at the last minute and they were trying to rush it through.  We couldn’t get our marriage license without the results of those blood tests, so it got to be our wedding day and we still didn’t even know if we could get married that evening or not.  The florist was a friend of Red’s family and she was waiting to hear whether or not to make our corsages.  The minister of the Methodist Church was waiting to know if the wedding was on or off. We finally did get the blood test paperwork that day, and Red and I drove to the Van Buren County Courthouse in Paw Paw to get our marriage license that afternoon.  At that time, you had to get your marriage license five days before you got married unless you could get a judge to waive that five-day waiting period.  When we got there they said the judge was out fishing somewhere.  One clerk said she knew which lake he was fishing at and she volunteered to go find him and bring him to the courthouse.  Or maybe she just went to the lake and got him to sign something to waive that five-day waiting period – I don’t remember which.  But we finally did get our marriage license that day, and the five-day waiting period was waived.  When we finally left the courthouse, it had started raining.  We ran out to the car with our marriage license in hand, and the car wouldn’t start.  So Red got out of the car and pushed it while I popped the clutch and got it started.  Then Red took me home to Watervliet so I could get ready for our wedding, and he went to let the minister and the florist know we would have the wedding.  Then he went home to Bangor to get ready for the wedding. 

Nobody was at home at my house in Watervliet.  It was the day of the annual Whirlpool picnic somewhere around South Bend, Indiana and Daddy, Mama and my brothers had all gone to that.  I got myself ready to go to my wedding but didn’t have any way to get there.  By chance, Bernice and Jay stopped by on their way to my wedding and they gave me a ride to my own wedding.  I left a note for my family that I was getting married at the Methodist Church in Hartford at 7:00 p.m., and to come if they could.

When we got to the church, and it was time for the wedding, my family still were not there.  I didn’t care and wanted to start without them, but everybody said we should wait for a little while and see if they didn’t get there.  I didn’t feel like we needed to wait for them at all since they hadn’t felt any necessity to skip the picnic on their daughter’s wedding day – even if the whole thing was a bit ‘iffy”.  But as usual, I didn’t voice my opinion about that.  Eventually my family came rushing in, still in their picnic clothes, and we were able to proceed with the festivities about 7:30. 

This little fiasco is generally considered to be quite an amusing and entertaining bit of our history – lots of laughs about this story over the years.  But I’m still mad about it and I don’t think it’s funny! 

Wooden Shoes and cousin Mick

 

Wooden Shoes and cousin Mick

I don't have any specific memories of this, but I wanted to post this picture of me and my cousin Mick Thomas wearing wooden shoes. I don't know where we got them -- Holland, Michigan, probably. This picture was taken in Uncle Morris' trailer, so the shoes probably belonged to him.

Here is another picture of Mick, with me and my brother Ricky. This was taken at our house in Bangor. These pictures are dated June 1958, so I would have been 3 years old, Ricky 1y 8m, and Mick was 8 years old.

These two pictures appear to have been taken the same day. 

That's me and my favorite guy -- my dad (Richard 'Red' Thomas)

Mick Thomas is the son of my dad's brother Bernarde.

PHOTO: Bernarde and Eileen Thomas (Mick's parents)

Two Doll Christmas

Two Doll Christmas

The year was 1960. The baby boomers were enjoying the blessings of world peace and a robust economy, unlike the generations before us. We were living in a bubble of time -- the very best time to be a child in this country. Television was just coming into its own, along with TV commercials. I love watching old TV commercials. They were SO different from the frenetic pace and cacophony of modern advertising. That year (1960) there were two dolls competing for attention from two different toy companies. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybWzkwsgVXQ

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhAyxbtKh48

Now you know I got a doll every Christmas, right? Well, what happened was...

My parents had already bought a Patty Play Pal for me. She was a "life size" doll who could stand on her own. She was hiding in a closet waiting for Santa's arrival. And then the competition hit the airwaves -- in the form of Chatty Cathy. She was the first talking doll. Well, of course I just HAD to have one!!! And I just KNEW Santa would bring me one, because I had been such a good girl all year...

I wish I could have been a fly on the wall to hear the conversations that took place between my parents as Christmas season approached. But the result was:

PHOTO: Unboxing Patty Play Pal.

PHOTO: And, oh look!! Patty has a new little sister!

PHOTO: Me with my TWO new Christmas dolls.

(And a mink stole to boot!!)

When I Grow Big

When I Grow Big

One day I asked my mother - "When I grow big and you grow little, will I be your mommy?"

She explained to me that people don't grow smaller, they just grow taller. I guess I must have been under the impression that at some point you reach a peak height and then start heading back toward childhood. I don't know how old I was at the time. Too young to grasp the concept of death, I guess.  

It was some time after this that I looked up at my great aunt Evalee, who was tall, and said in wonderment - "How OLD are you?"

PHOTO L-R: Evalee and her sisters Ruby, Cleffie (my grandmother), Bernice, and Irene

That Time I Decided to Skip School

 That Time I Decided to Skip School

When I was in 2nd grade, for the first and only time in my life I did not like school. One day when I was home for lunch -- we had an hour for lunch, time enough to walk home, eat, and walk back to school -- I decided I was going to skip the afternoon. My plan was to take baby-steps (heel-to-toe, just like a field sobriety test, which I probably should have had that day) all the way back to school. The school was six blocks from our house. I figured I would probably get there just about the time school would be letting out, and then I would walk home and no one would be the wiser, right? 

Well, when I got to the school, I didn't see anybody outside on the playground or anywhere around, and I didn't have any idea what time it was. I don't know exactly what kind of reasoning went through my mind, but I didn't know what else to do but just go on in the door like usual. My classroom was near the door at the end of the hallway where I went in. Just as I was going in the door, I saw my teacher coming out of the classroom. She saw me, too. And she was not happy. Seems she was on her way to the office to call my house and find out why I had not come back to school after lunch. I can't even begin to imagine what I told her when she questioned me (loudly) about why I was so late. I probably just told her the truth. Anyway, she did go to the office, and she did call my mother and told her about it (loudly). 

To my recollection, my mother wasn't all that bothered by what I had done. She let me know that she didn't approve of it, of course. But she had met my teacher before. She was a high-strung person, to begin with, and she was going through a divorce right at that time, so she probably shouldn't have been teaching little children. Her method of discipline was to have a misbehaving child come to the front of the classroom and sit on the floor until the next break (recess or lunch). What I remember is that most of the class would wind up sitting on the floor every day (This was the same teacher who once put masking tape over my mouth because I was talking too much.) So Mom understood why I didn't like going to school that year. Fortunately, we moved from Bangor to Hartford in the middle of the school year. So then I had a nice teacher and I liked school again.

Kindergarten

 Kindergarten

I remember those shoes. They were called "pixie boots" and I think they were suede. I loved them! Most of the time, though, I wore saddle oxfords.

Kindergarten was half-day. I don't remember if I was in the morning or afternoon class. The main thing I remember about kindergarten was that halfway through the session we had a little snack of cookies or graham crackers and milk, and then we took a short nap on little rag rugs on the floor of the classroom. 

(Don't tell me the "good old days" weren't better than the modern world. I feel sorry for children in the rat race of daycare nowadays. Well, that's a rant that probably should be nipped in the bud...)

My brother was in the afternoon class when he started kindergarten. His teacher told my mother that Ricky was very sleepy all afternoon in class. Mom told her that they would have to put him in the morning class because he was used to taking a nap in the afternoons. In fact, no matter where he was or what was going on, at 1:00 he went to sleep. One time mom found him asleep standing up, leaning on a chair. Another time they couldn't find him and were frantically searching the house. When they found him he was in the toybox, fast asleep.

The Perm

I've told you about my desire to have Shirley Temple hair. There was a point in time when my mother tried to make my wish come true by giving me a home perm.

(That mark on my cheek was a bite mark from my brother. Biting was his weapon of choice.)

Ta da !!!

Curly in the back

Straight in the front

* * *

I'm guessing this picture was some months after that perm. You can see that my hair has barely a little bit of wave near the bottom. The grown-out part is stick straight, my natural hair. Definitely NOT Shirley Temple!  That's my brother Rick and my cousin Cindy in the picture with me.

* * *

That must not have been my first perm, because there's this picture, in which my hair was curly all over, even in the front. I look younger here.

With my cousins Donna Kay Hawley and Cindy Bridges.

The Lookout

 The Lookout

Dianne: “Mom and Dad are across the street. I’m gonna peek and see what these presents are. You watch out the window and tell me if you see them coming.”

What Ricky saw when he looked out the window…

(It was a few years later before we found out he was legally blind.)

The Chicken Dance

Not the chicken dance that's associated with Oktoberfest.

This was a dance that was popular in the 1950s. Here's a description (from Wikipedia):

"The Chicken is a popular rhythm and blues dance that started in America in the 1950s, in which the dancers flapped their arms and kicked back their feet in an imitation of a chicken. The dance featured lateral body movements. It was used primarily as a change of pace step while doing the twist."

Okay, well, this is me doing the chicken dance.

Ricky's Tonka Truck

 My dad was a wonderful guy. He was always able to find the good in every situation, always able to find a solution to every problem, always happy to greet each new day. Here's a little story about one Christmas when I was about 4 years old: 

Santa Claus had brought my little brother a Tonka truck. I think it was a dump truck, or a truck with a crane maybe. Anyway, it was made of metal (as toys were back then - not plastic) and about two feet long and almost a foot tall. My uncle Morris was at our house that morning when we opened our presents. Dad and Morris were putting batteries in the truck and showing Rick how it worked. They were running it all over the house, and Rick was toddling around behind them. 

Well, Dad and Morris played with that truck so long that the batteries ran down! My mom got so mad at them she sent them out, on a snowy Christmas day (back then all the stores closed for Christmas - there were no Walmarts) to buy some new batteries to put in that Tonka truck. And "you'd better not come home without any!" I don't know how long they were gone, nor where they had to go to find them, but by george they did come home with some brand new D-batteries for Rick's Tonka truck. And then Rick finally got his turn to play with it.