As the figurative me continues the long march, I continue the narrative written by my sister for my parents’ 50 wedding anniversary. We pick it up where Bob and Sharyn have met. Bob was supposed to go on a mission for our church, but…
Basil: But Granddad never went on a mission. Here’s what he said happened. The Korean War was pretty much full blast by then. And my dad was then Bishop. I put in the papers to go on a mission, and I got a call to go to Guatemala. In those days they didn’t worry about whether you knew the language. They just put you in an airplane and sent you to wherever. So the mission home was like only a week. Barney Gardner from the Berkeley Ward and I went to the mission home. We were both in the same draft board, which was Richmond. The Richmond draft board would not honor the agreement with the church to have two people from each place go on missions. So they insisted that we should go in the Army.
Nick: So no one knew quite what to do. Granddad got some advise from Gordon B. Hinckley, who was in charge of affairs with the draft board. According to Granddad, his advise was to just climb on the plane and go to Guatemala. It didn’t make any sense to me because you’d get yourself arrest the second you got home. It’s like fleeing to Canada to avoid the draft. So as a result, they decided that Barney made a better test case because his dad wasn’t a bishop. So he was sent on a mission, and the draft board came and put him in the Army. So the advise sent to me was to go down and enroll in school.
Liz: And then Sharyn said: So we decided if he couldn’t go on a mission, we wanted to get married. We said we’d like to get married in June. My mother said, Oh, but it takes a while to get ready for a wedding. Just come home in June, and we’ll do this and this and this, and we’ll get ready for a wedding in August. And we were saying, you know, June’s a pretty long time. We’d really kindda like to get married. So anyway, Bob’s father used to come to Utah on recruiting trips for Shell. He’d interview young chemists, and such. And my mother sent him up with strict instructions to negotiate this thing. And so we talked. I guess he watched us together for a while, and he finally said, Well, would you be willing to wait until Christmas? My mother was just furious. But she came through with flying colors.
Jeff: Granddad’s version pretty much collaborates this. I guess the story there is that Sharyn’s mother wanted us to delay the wedding until the following September. We wanted to get married in June, we didn’t want to wait all summer. And so she sent my dad out to take care of the situation. Then he said, Well, could you wait till Christmas. He blew the whole thing. Sharyn’s mom was furious.
Brittany: So was Grandmother Higham furious? In October of this year, we asked Grandmother what she remembered about those days. Here’s what she said. When they first announced they were going to get married, I thought they were much too young, much too young. We tired to talk them out of it, but they weren’t being very reasonable. Both their fathers were bishops, so they asked if they could elope, but the bishops said no. Then, even my mother took Sharyn’s side, so I had to give in. Of course, my mother thought I was too young when I got married. They were so much in love. Bob acted very grown-up. He was quiet, so we never knew what he was thinking. Of course, we knew Bob’s family so we were happy to have the two families united.
More adventures for Bob and Sharyn to come. Until then, know that I have walked 749,185 steps in 61 days. I have walked 350 miles since leaving home. I will be in Winnemucca in 36 miles.
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