Reflections on 60 Years of Marriage

August 18, 1964

Mother had to sign for me. I was nineteen. Gail was legal. She was twenty-one.

When a teacher at Freed-Hardeman heard we were considering marriage, he gave us some good, solid advice: RUN! I was an only child, and Gail was living with 125 children at Childhaven. He saw no way we would be compatible. A few years later, he said he’d changed his mind.

I was making $65.00 a month preaching for three country congregations. We had no premarital counseling. It would have been challenging to make a 0-based budget work. Our rent was $35.00 a month. That left $30.00 monthly for groceries, school supplies, clothes, and other incidentals. Mother and Daddy said if I was old enough to get married, I could pay for my tuition at Freed-Hardeman. They had paid the year before. I saved the summer before and had the money in the bank for the first semester of 1964 — less $40.00, which we received at the Duncan shower the Saturday before having to pay the following week. That was calling it close.

The Sunday before our marriage, the Northside Church of Christ in Corinth, Mississippi, asked me to work with them. They wanted me to preach Sunday morning and Sunday night and teach a Bible class Sunday morning and Wednesday night. They paid us $75.00 — a WEEK! I also was paid 75¢ an hour for serving as the student intramural director. We saved $200.00 the first year.

On Monday, after trying out and being selected for the preacher position at Northside, we arrived at the Tuscumbia Church of Christ in Tuscumbia, Alabama, for rehearsal. That church had sponsored Gail and her sister Brenda at Childhaven since they came to the home in 1951. They gave us a nice shower and paid for all the wedding expenses.

I’d been to very few weddings before. Many people I knew in our community and in our family didn’t have public weddings. They drove to Corinth, Mississippi, to get married. Mississippi didn’t require a blood test and a three-day waiting period. I wasn’t familiar with a planned wedding.

As we were practicing, we walked down the aisle. There was something I’d never seen before a fixture about waist-high with a padded shelf about four inches off the floor and a padded shelf at the top. I asked what that was for. Gail told me it was a kneeling bench. We were to kneel on the bottom shelf and rest our heads on the top shelf while someone sang The Lord’s Prayer. I was perplexed. So I asked, “And after we finish that, should I carry you piggyback down the aisle and out the door.” She said we needed to go outside and talk. She explained it so I could understand, and we continued with the rehearsal.

We were married the next day, Tuesday, at 5:00 p.m. Many stopped by on the way from work to attend the wedding. Why get married on Tuesday? Where you’re making $65.00 a month, you can’t afford to miss a Sunday. We had $150.00 in traveler’s checks for our honeymoon to Chattanooga and the Smokey Mountains. As we entered South Pittsburg, Tennessee, the fuel pump went out on our Ford Falcon. The Ford dealership fixed it quickly for $20.00, and we continued. After visiting Chattanooga, Townsend, Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and Cherokee, North Carolina, we returned to Centerville with a $10.00 traveler’s check left over.

After the first semester of marriage, when Mother and Daddy noticed we hadn’t bought a new car or done other wild things, they agreed to continue paying my school expenses. Gail had an anonymous donor who paid for her college expenses.

That was our beginning sixty years ago.

August 18, 2014

Fifty years later, we had two children, six grandchildren, and one great-grandson. I was preaching in a meeting at the Macedonia church in Blue Ridge, Georgia. I went to the grocery store to buy 50 red roses. They had a sale — $9.00 a dozen. They said they couldn’t sell me fifty. The sale was only for bunches of a dozen. I asked if they would sell me one rose. They said they would. I ordered four dozen and two singles, which worked out just right. I wore my wedding suit and tie that night to preach.

August 18, 2024

Sunday was our 60th anniversary. We now have two children, six grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. We spoke to classes at Soul Focus Sunday at Mt. Juliet. I wore my wedding suit and one-inch tie. Kroger agreed to sell me sixty roses. Our grandson, Braden Parsons, was there to take anniversary pictures.

Our marriage has included working with churches. I’d been preaching three years before we married. We’ve worked with five churches full-time and ten in interim ministry. More than 6,600 people were in those churches with a total of 82 elders. Many more were in meetings and workshops.

The Lord has blessed us and our family. Thank you for every good wish and word of encouragement.