On this day…

Dale Espy Little – September 22, 1934

My parents were married on September 22, 1934.  When they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on this date in 1982, no one really took note of the discrepancy in the number of years.  Not until the big dinner celebration for family and close friends at the Ark Restaurant that night.  It was then, in a toast to my mom, that dad told the story

During the fall of 1932 – the midst of the Great Depression – my mother, Dale Espy, was here in Oysterville getting her wedding trousseau together while she waited for her fiancé Bill Little to complete his final year at the University of Redlands in California.  Mom had graduated from there the previous June but Dad, although he was two years older, had worked for a few years before beginning college… hence the delay in their marriage.

Dad was from Boston.  What’s more (my mother always teasingly said), he was a “Mama’s boy. ” So, the plan was that they would be married in Boston by my great-grandfather, William Woods, a Methodist minister.  (As an aside: “Big Bumpa” as I called him, had Christened his daughter — my grandmother “Nana”, had married my grandmother and grandfather, and had Christened my father.)  My Grandmother Little saw no reason for the tradition to be discontinued – never mind the Depression or the 3,000 miles distance between Boston and Oysterville, or that a bride might want to be married with her own family in attendance.

“Big Bumpa”
William Woods, 1844-1939

During the Christmas break in 1932, my dad came up to Oysterville to spend the time with Dale and his soon-to-be in-laws.  It turned out to be the holiday from hell.  My mother’s sister, Sue, was scheduled to come from Portland for Christmas with her young family but called on December 23rd that she was too ill to make the trip.  Pneumonia.  That news seemed like the last straw for Papa, my mother’s father, who was extremely ill himself from asthma. His mind began to seriously unravel.

My grandmother insisted that all of them pile in their old Model A and drive to Portland to be with Sue.  My dad drove.  They first took Papa to be admitted to a sanitorium, then went to Sue’s apartment where she gave my grandmother final instructions about her sons ages 4 and 8.  Sue died on December 27th.   My grandmother, at her wits’ end, was concerned for Dale (the youngest of her four living children) and asked Bill if he would please marry Dale so that she (my grandmother) would at least know that Dale’s future was assured.

So, Mom and Dad drove to Chehalis, the seat of Lewis County (they didn’t want the announcement of their marriage in the Pacific County papers) and were married at the courthouse on December 30, 1932.  For their wedding supper, they had only enough money for two glasses of milk.  The oyster crackers on the table were free.

Four Generations at Sydney’s Christening, 1936

Dad returned to Redlands, graduated in June, went back to Boston, worked for a year until he was finally was making enough money to send for Mom.  They were married by Big Bumpa in my Little grandparents’ living room on September 22, 1934. Of the witnesses at the wedding, only Mom’s brother Willard knew about the first marriage and he kept the secret for fifty years.

“So, we combined the dates for this celebration –  50 years after our first marriage and the September 22nd date from our second one,” dad said that evening at the Ark.  Everyone was delighted with the story – except my father’s brother, Jack.  I don’t think he ever forgave dad for keeping that secret from their mother (and from him!) for all those years!

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