The Judge said, ”What can I help you kids with?”  John said, “We want to get married.” The judge looked  right at me and said….”Are you pregnant?” I said “NO!”…..the judge said, then I will not even talk to you. He got up and left the room. John and I looked at each other and got up and walked back to the beat up Ranchero. Of course we were both disappointed to say the least. We figured my mom had already called the judges office and this was all planned out. I don’t know if that is true….but mom seemed pleased with herself when we got back to the house.

After we got home….we decided that I should get a driver’s permit. That was back when your parents didn’t have to go with you. I got a copy of my birth certificate and we decided to change my age on it so I would be older in case we had the chance to get married again.. I was born in Michigan so my birth certificate was black with white writing. That was tough to change, but we did it. (Now I know what the bible scripture means, be sure your sins will find you out…I’ve had to be one year older for years…ugggg) Yes, I passed my permit. I was really only 15, but my permit said I was 16. John was teaching me to drive in the 1969 red and black Ford Ranchero.

About a month later in February of that year 1969,  mom told us that she had been on the phone with her relatives back in Mississippi and Tennessee, and that her and daddy had decided that we were all going to move back south for work. Well, that really upset John. He said, they are trying to take you away from me…. Mom and dad started selling different household items, washer, dryer, tables, etc. We were to leave Oregon towards the end of February, moving to Tennessee. The time was getting close for us to leave and we were going to check out of school. Throughout the years if some of the children needed notes for being home sick or permission notes, mother would have us older girls write the notes and she would sign them. She worked as a nurse with many of those years night shift to be away while we were sleeping and dad was home. That day mom was going to come to the school and check all of us children out for the move. John called me that morning and said he had a plan. He said my sisters husband was going to help us. He told me that we were going to run away and get married. I said, “where will I meet you….mom is coming to the school to get us kids checked out.” John told me to go to the elementary school, then he said, no, go to the high school….then he said no you better stay on the bus and go to the elementary school……I was getting all confused, but it was almost time for the bus to pick us up for school… so I told my mom to just write us a note and she wouldn’t have to come to the school. I thought that would give us some extra time.  So I got her a paper….about that time, the bus came so she just signed the paper and said , write the note….I ran upstairs and grabbed a lacy yellow dress that I wore in my sister’s wedding and some white high heels. After all if I was gonna get married, I wanted to look good. So I ran to the bus….I wasn’t  sure where  John was gonna have my brother in law meet me…..The bus went to the high school and let students off..(that is where I was supposed to get off) I decided to stay on and ride the bus to the elementary school….about that time, I saw my brother in law pull into the high school parking lot…..I thought I’ll just stay on the bus because it comes back to the high school after dropping off elementary students. About that time my little sister Brenda, said, hey Pam, mom and dad are following the bus. My heart sunk…. I thought, I’m just gonna stay on the bus and go to school like nothing happened. As soon as the bus stopped for the little kids to get off, I could hear my mother’s voice……. “ Is Pamela Carole on this bus?”………….. (to be continued)

The police officer came up right behind us and passed us as fast as he could. Whew…….we were so thankful.  So we continued on to John’s aunts house. When we got to her house, she opened the door and said” Johnny and your…….wife?” John said, well we are trying to get married. His aunt told us that we should call our parents and let them know we were ok. We called home that night and our parents told us to come home and they would talk with us about getting married.  It was a pretty good idea, because John was gonna have to get back to his job at the mill back home. Also the laws were the same in New Mexico. You had to be 21 without parents consent and 16 with parents consent. So off we were heading back to Oregon. On our way home, we were taking the coastal route from California to Oregon.….. the roads were curvy and they had signs saying watch for falling rocks. We didn’t think much about the signs because we had seen them for miles and miles…..well……all of a sudden here comes these rocks just tumbling off of the mountain side and starting smashing on the windshield and on the roof of the car….. John screamed like a girl which got me tickled …probably along with my nerves.

I’m not gonna lie…that was pretty awkward heading home to face our parents. I was always the “goodie two shoes sort of girl.”  I always tried to obey my parents and do what they said. I always wanted to please them. So this was completely out of character for me and I was a bit scared to face especially my mom. She was sort of like a loving sergeant. She had 7 children and we all knew what that snapping finger meant. She never really had to tell us something twice.

Not to mention, since I didn’t call or show up for the game to let them know I wouldn’t be there, I had to give up my position as cheerleader. That part was very sad, because, I LOVED being a cheerleader.

 Anyhow….the 1969 red and black Ford Ranchero which was John’s pride and joy…was now pretty banged up. A hole in the roof and a broken windshield along with several small dents.

We both went home to our parents. John went back to work at the mill and I went back to school. I turned 15 years old and my mom said for us to go to the courthouse and talk to the judge.

It was snowing the morning we headed on the freeway to the county courthouse. The courthouse was about 30 miles away. All of the cars were driving very slow and cautiously. We saw a guy that we knew was visiting from California. He was going so very slow and over steering. John said, “Look at that guy….people from California don’t know how to drive in the snow….so we passed him….and our car started sliding to the left….then sliding to the right……we needless to say were now in front of the guy from California…… our car slid all the way to the right and our car hit the guard rail….smashing the front right bumper into the tire…..the guy from California stopped to see if we were ok…..

After John pulled the bumper out…we headed back on our way to the court house. I looked back on the freeway at all the white snow…and I said, “what are all those black strips all over the road?” John looked in the rear view mirror and told me it was the tire shredding. So we pulled over again, pulled the front bumper out further and continued on to the court house to meet with the judge ………………..

We walked in and asked to speak with the judge…..we were so scared. She asked us what this was in regards to…..we told her we wanted to get married. The woman at the desk told us to have a seat and the judge would be out of court in a few minutes…We waited with wet palms not really talking…

Finally the lady said we could come this way…we walked into the Judge’s chambers….He was sitting behind what seemed like a huge desk. I was so scared….He had on a black robe ….I guess because he had just been in court. He said…”What can I help you kids with?”  (to be continued)

John drove all night and I slept like a baby. John says in California just before we got to Reno, while I was sleeping, he thought a police officer was following us. He thought our parents must have called and they must have been on to us. So John pulled into someone’s driveway and turned off his lights and leaned over till the police passed. That woke me up so we watched the sunrise as we arrived to Reno in the wee hours of the morning. We pulled into a Denny’s and had breakfast to figure out our plan. John said he figured our parents and or the police thought we would be in Reno so we decided to go on to Las Vegas. When we arrived to Las Vegas we called the courthouse to find out what the requirements were to get married. Of course this was before cell phones, so we had to use a phone booth. Well we found out really fast that you had to be 21 years old without parents consent and 16 years old with parents consent. Which we had neither. So that wasn’t gonna work. We had to figure out what to do next.

John said he had an Aunt that lived in New Mexico, so we decided to head there. John was working at one of the local mills back home and the mill had closed for a week, so we had a few days to decide what to do. On the way to New Mexico we stopped at a little Indian trading post in Arizona, because we didn’t have any wedding rings, and if we could figure out how to get married we needed some rings. The rings were $1.29 each. They were silver bands with a bit of design on them. They were a matching pair. As we got back on the highway towards  New Mexico……..all of a sudden a police officer was behind us with his red lights flashing………… (to be continued)

I was 14 years old. We had been dating for about one year. It was a fall evening and it was football season. I was gonna go to the football game with John. He drove me home from school so I could change into my cheerleading uniform. Mom and dad were not home, so we told my older sister ( that was 3 years older than me and babysitting all the younger children) we would be back after the game. She said my dad had gone to get a job somewhere in Redding she thought…(it was actually Riddle which was 15 miles away instead of 200 miles away) that seemed a long ways away to me….. I couldn’t believe it…..They were really gonna move me away??? John pulled me aside and said would you  marry me if I told you I had $300.00 in the bank? (oh boy it’s true what they say……. love is blind) I said yes…..So John told me to go upstairs and get some clothes and throw them out the window…..He would keep my sister occupied……Sure enough I ran upstairs, but to my knowledge we didn’t own a suitcase, with a family of 7 children. So I did the next best thing….. I  grabbed all of  my clothes out of the closet and drawers, tied them in a blanket and threw them out the upstairs window……It made a big thump when it hit the ground and my sister said what was that? John just kept her occupied then we said we were off to the game (or so we said.) We were off to John’s house to get his belongings. I was supposed to keep his father occupied while John gathered his clothes. John’s dad had suffered a brain hemorrhage and lost his ability to speak.(More about this later)  I didn’t know his dad really well and was trying to guess what all his grunts and gestures meant..We finally headed out for our run away marriage to Reno. We planned to hire an old man on the street to say he was my dad.

The weather didn’t really cooperate with us…. We were gonna head over the mountain to keep from going through a check station, thinking that our parents would realize we were gone by then. Well that plan didn’t work since the snow got deeper and deeper till the snow plow went as far as it could go and stopped in the middle of the road surrounded by snow. We had to turn around and head back for the main highway. Shortly before we got to the agricultural  check station going into California in the middle of the night, John had me lay down in the floorboard of his 1966 Ford Ranchero (more about this car later.) and covered me with clothes…..John thought they would be looking for a guy and a girl, so he thought if it was just a guy they wouldn’t recognize us so quickly. Well as I said it was a cold night and when we got to the check station, the officer at the station stayed in his nice warm building and motioned us to go on through……..(to be continued)