Wedding Bells

In the fall of 1940, James and I planned to be married. I had a good job at the hospital in San Angelo, and we were just going to work things out the best we could.

Mother and I invited a few friends and Mommy Bent to lunch at the Cactus Hotel to announce our engagement. I made little black doctor’s bags out of cardboard, and wrote the announcements on cats. We “let the cat out of the bag.” Isn’t that silly? You probably never heard that expression.

James mailed a big box of gorgeous bougainvillea from Galveston for a table arrangement. That was very exciting to me.

My friend, Nelle Taylor, James' roommate and fraternity brother, Rush McMillan, James and I drove down from San Angelo and Galveston respectively, to the St. Anthony Hotel on November 20, 1940, the Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving. We had met in San Antonio another time with a group, and it was easy to meet there.

James had contacted Dr. Perry Webb, pastor of the First Baptist Church in San Antonio, and made arrangements for us to be married in Dr. Webb's study at 7 p.m.

I wore a "soldier" blue dress and HAT for the ceremony and James gave me a lovely gardenia corsage.

Dr. Webb had a lesion of some kind on his face. The medical students had been studying Dermatology, and were very interested in the lesion. They could hardly wait until the ceremony was over to ask Dr. Webb about his lesion.

We had three rooms at the St. Anthony. First time I ever saw an automatic door.

Nell and Rush became pretty close that weekend Nelle dated a friend of James' from Sonora for a while, and when Rush came to San Angelo to visit him, Nelle ended up dating him. I think she fell in love with Rush, but that didn't work out.

Nelle and Rush left the day after the wedding. James and I then moved into a less expensive motel after our wedding night splurge at the Hotel. That was what we could afford, and we wanted to be together as much as possible.

We had a wonderful brief time together, and on Sunday James went back to Galveston to school, and I went back to San Angelo to work.

That was BAD. The War in Europe was going on, though and I was afraid to leave my good job in San Angelo.

James came home for Christmas, and that was good.