Our 50th. Anniversary

Liz left this earth about two years ago. Yesterday we would have celebrated our Golden Anniversary. I know my family and friends remembered because, yes we got married on Halloween 1969. I was 17 and Liz just 16 years old. They, like myself chose to remember her quietly, but tonight I do miss her so much and hope you don’t mind if I share part of our love story.

The Obstacle

I’ve never publicly told this story, but at that age we needed a parents permission to get married. Problem was, our families were of different faiths. Her family would not let her marry in my church and could only marry someone of her faith in their church. Liz and I were both determined to get married in church, so we hatched a secret plan.

Liz’s parents finally agreed to allow us to get married by a justice of the peace, so at 4:30 pm both our mothers stood with us in the JP’s office, downtown courthouse Memphis, Tn. and we were legally married. At 7:30 that evening there was quite a large wedding at Allen Road Baptist Church, and there we were married in God’s house.

Divine Intervention?

That paragraph makes it all sound very simple, but my mother and her two sisters planned that large wedding and the reception in complete secrecy until the last minute. Had the plan been discovered both marriages would have been stopped. If you have ever been involved in planning a wedding, you know how difficult that was.

Many of our friends and guests didn’t even find out about the wedding until 4:30, just three hours before the ceremony for fear we would be discovered. Some of our friends showed up in their Halloween costumes a bit angry because they were missing “trick or treating”. We were that young! Teenagers all went trick or treating back then.

Liz has always believed in God. Even at her young age of 16, I knew she was a Christian. She constantly tried to get me to take her to church and In her writings I discovered that she had always kept her faith. I know she prayed for me and her prayers finally came true. I am a born again Christian and we will now see each other again.

Jesus is Lord

I Love You