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)

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)