John’s aunt came to the door and said, “Johnny…..and you’re…. wife?” John told her not yet….we are still trying to get married. We hadn’t been there very long and his aunt convinced John he should call his mom and let her know that we were ok. When John called his mom, she told him that he had received draft notice from the Army. He was supposed to report to the draft board in about 30 days. So John asked me if I still wanted  to get married. Of course I did.

John’s aunt set each of us up in our own bedrooms. She was so sweet to get me out a night gown, and several items that a traveling girl would need. I did have my purse with my makeup. That was one pretty important thing for a 15 year old girl. John’s aunt was going to help us find out the rules and laws in New Mexico. Back then we didn’t have the internet, so everything had to be by phone calls and research. We found out that we had to have a required blood test that took 3 days to get the results. So we went to a local clinic and each gave blood.  John’s Aunt and Uncle remembered they had friends that went down Juarez Mexico to get married. So we made the decision that the next morning we would head out for Old Mexico. That night we went to a movie. We went to see “The Graduate.” I probably wasn’t even old enough to go to that movie.

The next morning bright and early we got out the map and planned our trip. It was about a 300 mile drive. We still had John’s granny’s car. So off we went. We decided not to drive into Mexico, that we were going to park in El Paso, Texas and take a taxi. John had some cash and we didn’t want to take extra cash into Mexico so we took the pack of cigarettes that John bought, took out the cigarettes, stuffed the money in the empty pack, then put some cigarettes back in to hide the money. Then we put the pack with our hidden money in the glove compartment.

When the taxi picked us up, we told him we wanted to get married. He probably could tell we looked a bit young so he asked us if we had papers. We told him yes, that we did. This was on a Sunday in March 1969. He told us that is was going to cost us extra because it was on a Sunday. He started driving, and it seemed like a long drive. He first drove us to the judge’s house. The taxi driver went to the door, and talked to someone, then came back and told us that the judge was at a funeral, that it was going to cost a little extra because the judge was at a funeral. We sat there in the taxi till the judge drove up in a car. When the judge arrived the taxi driver got out and started speaking Spanish to the judge. The judge was a distinguished looking man all dressed up in a suit. Then the taxi driver said the judge wanted to see our papers. Boy…..we were really sweating it. The taxi driver handed the papers to the judge. They talked back and forth….The judge looked over the paperwork, then looked in the car at us, then talked some more. Then the taxi driver said that we needed to give the judge $35.00 . That was the amount because it was Sunday and the Judge had been to a funeral. After we gave the money, the taxi followed the judge to his office.

We all got out and went into the judges office. Of course I had on my red A-line skirt and the stupid flowered blouse that I chose to wear on Saint Patrick’s Day, all because it had some green leaves on the flowers…. not realizing that it would end up being my wedding dress. We walked into this beautiful office with a huge marble desk. The judge gave us a marriage license to fill out. We filled out the paperwork, but we had to have a witness. The taxi driver said he would be our witness. After we filled out all the papers, the judge stood up on his side of the desk and had us to stand up on our side of the desk. The taxi driver stood beside us with both hands holding his hat, like he was really proud to be part of our wedding ceremony as the witness. The judge spoke in a very strong Spanish accent. He started right off trying to pronounce our full names…..Pamela….. do you take John…… to be your husband. I said Yes. Then he said, John…. Do you take Pamela…. to be your wife.  John just stood there. No answer. Nothing. I sort of elbowed him and said, well John, good grief. (I thought to myself, here you drug me all across the United States and into Mexico and you’re not gonna say yes?) Then he said, Yes,… yes,… yes! He said later, he just couldn’t believe we finally did it. We finally got married. So, the judge gave us our marriage license, which is mostly written in Spanish. We got back in the taxi and headed to our car in El Paso. The taxi driver shook our hands and told us congratulations. We got back in John’s granny’s car and headed back to New Mexico. WE FINALLY DID IT! But, what had we done?   I don’t know exactly what we thought, but I don’t think we spoke three words to each other all the way back to John’s aunt and uncles. I’m not even sure why we drove back there that night, except we knew we still needed to get home to Oregon with what money we had left.

On our way back we hit a sand storm, or dust storm. Whatever you want to call it. It was so thick. We could see it coming from a distance. We had to slow down to almost a crawl, because you couldn’t even see a car in front of you. You could even taste dirt in your mouth. I had never seen anything like that before.

It was later that night that we arrived at John’s aunt and uncles house. We decided that we should call our parents and tell them that we got married. I made John call his parents first, because I was pretty nervous about calling my mom. I took the phone and dialed mom. She answered the phone, I acted like nothing had happened. I said, Hi mom. She said, “hello.” Then I asked her how she was, she answered fine, fine. So I proceeded to ask her how everyone was, one by one. Name by name. She answered the same for each person, fine, fine. Then I said, “well, mom, I got married today.” She said, “not legally dear, not legally!” Then I said, “ok, I better go now.” That was awful. I was so scared to tell her, and so sad that she was so disappointed in me. I loved my family. I loved being a part of such a large family. We always had a fun time. I hadn’t really been away from them except to go to church camp. I certainly wasn’t getting married to get away from them. They were all so important to me.

John’s aunt and uncle had set up a bedroom really nicely for us. His uncle teased and teased us…He kept saying, don’t ya’ll want to play a game or something. Maybe watch some T.V. But honestly my nerves were pretty shot. When we got in the bedroom, John got tickled and started laughing. He giggled and giggled. I said, please stop, they are gonna think you are laughing at me. Why are you laughing so much? He said, I don’t know….It’s hard to believe. We finally did it! We finally got married!

The next morning, we wanted to go home. Home to Oregon. But, here we had John’s granny’s car in New Mexico. His Uncle said he was going to Arkansas the next month and would tow the car back to granny.  So we left him some money for the extra trouble and gas. Then we called the airlines to find out how much tickets were to go home. (to be continued)

So we decided we better lay low for a while. John said, “Pam, I think we should stay up an old road for a few days.”  So we stopped at a ranger station store to get a few things we would need. We didn’t have an ice chest so we got a loaf of bread, a small jar of mayonnaise, a package of bologna, and a 6 pack of coke.  This wasn’t particularly a good time of the month for me, so we had to get a couple of other necessities.

We found a nice little area that was right by a creek. That was great to have some water available to clean up, brush teeth etc. My hair is naturally curly and it was getting a little longer. I had to use large hair rollers to keep my hair from just curling up to little wadded curls. Especially my bangs.  I looked in the glove box of John’s granny’s car….I couldn’t really find anything but a rubber band. John had a pocket knife, he asked me how big my roller was that I normally use….…so he broke off a small branch and cut it down to about the size of a hair roller. He whittled on it for quite a while. He even tried to hollow it out. I went to the creek, wet my bangs and wrapped them around this wooden makeshift hair roller…used the rubber band to wrap it around and hold it in my hair. It actually worked pretty good. It was a little bit tighter curl than I liked. John had a comb, so I teased my bangs and made them a little straighter that way. I do have to say…..to this day, I can’t stand bologna sandwiches and I don’t drink regular coke anymore. Course back then I only weighed 98 lbs.

When we got settled in at our new little camp site, John got out a set of wedding rings that he had purchased. Oh my goodness, they were beautiful…. I loved them!  I immediately wore the engagement ring.

John gave me the package his mom had made for me. I opened it up. To my amazement there were several pair of underpants and some pantyhose. I guess she belonged to a panty club and they sent her on a regular basis panties and nylons. So at least I had clean undies…..and I used some of John’s shirts to wear with my red a-line skirt while my blouse dried from washing it in the creek. I washed it with the bar of soap we had.

We talked about what we should do next. We decided to go back to John’s aunts house in New Mexico. We at least had this new paper with a notary seal to use for permission for me. I knew how to sign my dad’s name really well. He hated to write notes for us kids for school, so he would always say…. Oh you just go ahead and write the note. So I was gonna sign his name to the permission paper. I also had to sign the notary’s name.   

We gathered up all of our belongings and headed back out to the main highway. We were gonna go to New Mexico, back to John’s aunt’s house.

John had sold his motorcycle so he had $350.00. Plus he worked at the saw mill, so that is how we paid for gas and items we needed. Back then gas was  39  to 40 cents a gallon. John’s wage at the mill was $2.98 an hour. I was a freshman in high school.

We drove and talked for hours. We talked about a house, we talked about business adventures we wanted to try, we had lots of dreams for the future. We also talked about how mad my mom probably was. I always obeyed my parents. This was totally out of my character to go against their wishes. So I was pretty sad and scared to not please my mom. I heard later that when mom called the police in Tennessee, the police officer said, “Are you sure you want to press charges? I would be proud if somebody went to that much trouble to marry my daughter.”

When we finally arrived to New Mexico, John’s niece opened the door. Her mouth dropped opened and she said, mama come here……. (to be continued)

I was just sure that my brother David could tend to the kids until mom and dad got home, and John said his mom had packed some things for me….and even if the neighbor girl had it all figured out that it was John, we would be able to head out to get married before anyone would know for a while. So off we went.

John told me later he had gotten a taxi and drove past the house, then got a hotel that night and shaved off his beard. He doesn’t smoke, but he bought some cigarettes and had one hanging out of his mouth to make sure no one would recognize him.  Then he drove around Memphis and figured out the best way to get out of town. He also noticed that a train went across the tracks between our house and the store shortly after 5pm.

Mean while I am told that my brother David got really upset when I didn’t come home. He was calling around to every laundry mat he could find. David was thinking I might have been kidnapped, but as soon as mother got home from the laundry mat she said, “It’s that John Shepherd!” I guess all goodness broke loose. Mom called the police, the FBI and anyone she could think of…she was so upset. My dad later told me that she even thought she was having a heart attack and called the ambulance. It’s crazy when you are 15 years old, you don’t really think about the hurtful affects you can have on someone when you are just “so in love” and wanting to get married.

Well John had decided we should drive back to his granny’s house in Gurdon, Arkansas to see if we could borrow her car a little longer. We headed that way and John stopped at a rest area to take the black x’s off of the hub caps.

John kept telling me how friendly everyone was around where his granny lived. They all knew his granny’s car and all the neighbors up the long country roads waved at us…..we waved really big back to them. Well mostly I waved really big back to them. When we got to his granny’s house, she was standing out in the yard. She had been crying. When we got out of the car, she said, “Johnny….the police they done been here. They said you stole that little girl….. you gotta go on down there and turn yourselves in.” John said, “granny I’m not gonna turn myself in…. I need to borrow your car.” His granny told us she couldn’t loan us her car, cause the police done told her she would get in trouble for helping us…. So John told her, “Granny, we have to steal your car!”  So we jumped in the car and took off. Now…….. we had waved to all the neighbors and now we don’t know if the police had been going to the neighbors asking any questions or not. So John decided we better find another way out of there. He took an old logging road so we wouldn’t have to go back past the neighbors…..It was pretty muddy on this old logging road. It was March and it had been raining. We got a good ways up the road and a big truck or some large piece of equipment was stopped right in the middle of the road. I guess they had gone home for the day…so John backed up and got a run at it. He was gonna pass the truck, and there was a pretty good sized ditch that was quite muddy….I held my breath…we spun and slid around and slowly we got around the truck.

As soon as we got back to a main highway, a police officer waved at us as he passed. John said, uh oh….cops don’t wave at people…. I think he knows who we are. (to be continued)

I couldn’t believe my eyes….I said, “ John what are you doing here?” He said, “Hurry get in! I said, “I can’t go with you, I’m supposed to be watching the kids, and I broke the bottle of Pine Sol cleaner into a million pieces in the bathroom, besides I don’t have anything clothes or anything.!” He told me his mom packed a few things for me. You see she had decided we were going to get married with her blessing or without it, so she decided to sign for John to get married. He needed a signature since he was only 19.  

 Back a month earlier when my mother told John and I we could get married in a month, John went in to the office at work and told them he was getting married in a month and needed a week off. Then of course he received my letters explaining that my mom said we couldn’t get married after all. Well, John kept his week vacation. John said he was determined that we were going to get married. So he sold his Motorcycle. John decided to type me up a paper giving me permission to get married from my father. He knew that the paper would need to be notarized so he decided to make a notary seal. Back then notary seals were embossed. Not like today. Today notary seals are just stamps of ink with signatures. So John said he had 2 copies of a bill of sales notarized. He brought them home. He poured plaster of paris on the notarized seals on one of the copies. It didn’t work, it flattened the seal out on the page. So he got a candle and dripped hot wax on the seal so it would hold it’s shape. He put a biscuit cutter over it and poured in more plaster of paris on top of the waxed notary seal. He said it was a perfect replica. He laid a piece of paper over the newly made seal and took a pencil eraser and pressed out the impression of the embossed seal. John said it wasn’t quite as indented as when a actual notary squeezes the embossed original, but he told me that some of them don’t squeeze as hard as others.

  Of course I knew none of this was taking place while I was in Tennessee.I was receiving a letter everyday from John. He said he wrote a whole stack of letters (and I might say……I did notice they were pretty short) he had his mom mail a letter every day, so I wouldn’t know he was on his way to Tennessee.

John’s elderly granddad and grandma along with his great aunt and uncle were planning to head back to Arkansas from Oregon. By now John’s 1966 Red Ford Ranchero was pretty beat up and had 4 bald tires. So John offered to drive this car load of little old people back home. John’s granddad had cancer on his face and half of his face was bandaged up. So granddad would have been driving with only one eye in rain snow and icy roads for hundreds of miles across the country. I guess the trip didn’t go without some mishaps. They had to have a valve job on Granddads car in Arizona and they hit some pretty nasty weather. They hit an ice storm in Texas which had cars and trucks sliding all over the roads. John said they stayed at a couple of motels along the way. John said his granddad would go to the motel office and ask them how much for the night. They would give him a price then Johns granddad would go look at the room, turn down the sheets and say, I can’t give you that much, I’ll give you….then he would offer them less money. The motel clerk would bargain with the granddad and they would settle on a price.   

John finally made it to Arkansas with his little ole aunt in the back seat crying out to Jesus several times when the car would slide. His grandparents said, “Now son, you’re not gonna go over there and get that little girl are you?” John said he kept telling them……oh, we’ll see, don’t worry about it.  

 John had his grandparents drop him off at his granny’s house. That is his mom’s mother. Granny Smart we all called her. John was gonna borrow her car to come to Tennessee to get me. John’s Granny said John could use her car, but said, “ Now Johnny, you’re not gonna steal that little girl are you……. you’re gonna go get yourself in trouble.”

 John had a full beard while we were dating and when I saw him at the seven eleven, he was clean shaven. He said he didn’t want anyone to notice him. I guess he had driven by our house several times to make sure where we lived and where the store was.

 So when I saw John in the car, and told him I couldn’t go……his face just fell…….I told him to let me go in the store and think about what to do. John kissed me, and I thought the neighbor saw me. Mother had told the next door neighbors “They tried to run off, and I caught them.” So I knew if she saw us kissing, she would know it was John. While I was walking around the store I tried to decide what to do. I was so worried about all the kids at home with the broken glass and I didn’t have any clothes…..so I finally rationalized that my brother David was only a year younger than me and that he could keep the kids safe so I decided to go. I saw the neighbor girl in the store she smiled at me and it seemed like she knew something was up…She kept following me around a smiling at me…..I was sure she saw us kiss and she knew it was John….I went out to the car and told John that I finally made up my mind as to what I should do……….. (to be continued)

John came right in the house and sat down on the couch. My mother slammed the phone down on the receiver and said, “John Shepherd, I’ll tell you one thing…………..she proceeded giving us a lecture that lasted for what seemed a lifetime. Finally toward the end of her talk, she must have worn down. She said to John, “I’ll tell you what, if you will give us one month to get down there and get settled, we’ll even have a little wedding for you.” Back then in Tennessee, you could get married with parents consent at  15 years old.  So we both totally agreed with that. The next day was a big packing day. We had several of us that were traveling, so there wasn’t room for much. We took two vehicles along with a U-haul trailer. We stayed a night with my sister and her husband and then we were headed to Tennessee.  We hadn’t traveled even an hour and mom looked over at me and said I’m not gonna let you get married. Well, that was certainly before cell phones, so I had no way of letting John know my mom’s news flash. I would have to wait till we arrived in Tennessee and write a letter. My drivers permit came in handy. Mom really liked having me help her drive to Tennessee. We finally arrived. Both of my parents were born and raised in Mississippi. We had several family members living back there. Dad found a job right away. I was too wrapped up in my own thoughts to remember the details of his job. All of us kids were registered in school. Wow, it was a huge school. Glendale had about 300 students and this school had what seemed like thousands and was two levels. I sent John several letters. He would send me letters, however, mom intercepted them. We had been there just about a month and I got a phone call from John one afternoon after school. He was asking all about the new place, the surrounding area. Mom chimed right in and told me to tell John what was all around, a 7 eleven store, a KFC , how convenient everything was. At the end of the conversation, John said, I want to tell you something, but I want you to be real quiet and not act excited.  He said he was going to have somebody come to the 7-eleven tomorrow at 5pm, they would have something for me. I asked him who. He told me it would probably be a cousin.  I asked how would know them. He said, “The car will have X’s on the hub caps.” So we finished up the conversation as though nothing was any different. Well the next day was Saint Patrick’s day. The reason I remember so vividly, is because, I didn’t have anything really good with green on it so I wore a red a line skirt with a flowered blouse, that had some green in the leaves. It was almost 5 o’clock and getting close to time for me to run down to the store to meet John’s cousin to see what he had.  The store was very close with a train track that went between the house and the store. I was getting all ready and nervous when mom said, Pam, it’s your turn to go to the laundry mat with me. We had sold our washer and dryer before leaving Oregon. I really had to get out of this one. I begged my little sister Brenda to please go. She said NO she would not go. I said, “if you will go this time, I will go 10 times in a row.” Finally I talked her into going with mom. By the time they got loaded and headed out it was just minutes before 5pm. I was home with my brother David, he was a year younger than me, and my little brothers, Tommy and Johnny, they were 6 and 7. Then my little niece Pammy (named after me) she was about 2 at the time. I had to quickly run to the bathroom and in my rush, I knocked a glass bottle of bathroom cleaner off the back of the toilet. It broke all to pieces. I told David to please keep the little kids out of the bathroom till I got back. So I headed to the store….I was so nervous. I got to the railroad tracks and I could see a car with black X’s on the hub caps….it looked like they were made out of black electricians tape….as I got closer there was this guy, clean shaven, with a hat pulled down over his forehead. I walked up as he rolled down the window…….(to be continued)

The bus driver said, “yes she is….she is planning on going back to the high school.” . My mother said, “no she’s not!!!!”   I guess mom got thought about the blank paper she signed for me to check out of school. She thought I would use that to get married. When actually we were just trying to get a early start, because they wouldn’t expect me home till after school. Mother marched on the bus….headed straight for me. She asked me if I tried to run away to get married…( I had a yellow lace dress and white high heels in my hands.) I thought about it…and knew I was going back to the high school to act like nothing happened, so I said NO!!! (well I wasn’t usually a liar, but I just couldn’t bear to tell her the truth.).  Mother took me by the arm and marched me off of the bus. The kids were standing there to get on the bus headed to the high school. There were many of my fellow students. It was a small town and a small high school. Mother looked at the students and said, “They tried to run away, and I caught them.” She marched me to the car where my dad was sitting in the passenger’s seat. She put me right between them and said, “I can’t trust you as far as I can throw you.”  My dad asked me in his slow Mississippi accent…”Hon, did you try to run away?” I told him yes mother said she was going to take me to the school and check me out herself. When we got out of the car, she once again took me by my arm and was going to escort me to my locker. The students were all standing along the sides of the hall watching in utter shock. My mother looking from side to side of the hall turning her head one way and then the other reciting “They tried to run away, but I caught them.” I kept asking my mom not to say that.  We went to the office and checked me out, ready to head for Tennessee. Mom preached to me all the way home. I was a captive audience.

John noticed that the plan didn’t work out, so it wasn’t but just a few minutes after we got home, that we heard John driving up the driveway. Oh my…. mother was not in the mood. As John walked up to the door she said in her stern voice, “John Shepherd don’t you darken these doors, I mean it, don’t you come in this house.” “John said, yes I am.” Mom told him she meant it and that she was going to call the cops if he came in. John just walked right in, mother grabbed the phone off of the wall and said, I’m calling the police. John told her in his quiet and calm voice to go ahead and call them…. (to be continued)