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Title
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069
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Transcription
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THE WEDDING DAY
It is 10:00 O'clock Easter Sunday evening, Apr.8,1928 [sic]. If we get married tomorrow will you? The question came from Art Uhl. Two gasps and 20 minutes later, Verna and I agreed that perhaps it was the thing to do.
For over a year Art Uhl and Jerry Blair had been planning to marry, and for a year and a half Jim Metzger and Verna Pielstick had been engaged. Marriage for Jerry and Verna was out of the question if they wanted to keep their teaching contracts with the Crawford School System. The rules in 1928 said that married women could not teach, these jobs were to be given to men who had families to support. How could it make a difference when there were no men in Crawford Nebraska qualified to teach in the Crawford school system? Could the marriages be kept a secret in a small town of 1200 people, where every one knew everybody's business?
Easter Monday, April 9, 1928 arrived, but it started early, 3:00 a. m. for me. This was a momentous decision, after all nothing like this had happened to be before, and I couldn't sleep. I wasn't sure how to deal with the situation I called Art on the phone and found that he had a short night also. We had all agreed that the marriage had to be kept a secret, but how could we be certain? My conversation with Art was very short, this was a country line and some one might be listening. I told my parents what we were doing, and they didn't offer any objection, but were surprised at the sudden decision.
Our first problem was to select a place to get married Do we drive to Lusk, Wyoming? That was out of state and only 60 miles from Crawford. Do we go to Hot Springs South Dakota? That was out of state and about the same distance? The easiest place to go was our own County Seat, Chadron. We knew a minister who would marry us, and be willing to keep it a secret. We were both acquainted with the County Clerk, and we thought he would be willing to withhold the announcement from the papers. It would be risky, but we decided to take the chance.
The morning of April 9, 1928 was bright and clear. We drove to Chadron in Art's new green Buick. I don't remember anything we talked about during the hour it took us to get to the court house, I do remember noticing the rolling hills with some streaks of snow in the gullies, I had seen this many times before, but some how this time it was different.
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Rights
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Metzger Memories
