March 4 — Do you have marriage records for your grandparents or
great-grandparents? Write a post about where they were married and when. Any
family stories about the wedding day? Post a photo too if you have one.
My good parents, shortly after their marriage in 1932.
My parents lived in eastern Kentucky. Mom told me they got married because there wasn't anything else to do.
Chester Lee Clemens and Ida Stevens were young hillbillies living in Carter County, Kentucky. Ida's father was the foreman at the local limestone quarry where Chester worked. Dad married the boss's daughter.
On the morning of 1 Feb 1932, Dad was working on the car that would take them to neighboring Morehead in Rowan County. Battery acid spilled into his eyes. They flushed them out, but his eyes continued to tear up all day, and he spent the day wiping them.
The judge kept reassuring him that it wasn't going to be that bad.
They married during the Depression, but Mom always said they never knew there was a Depression going on. They made do on very little. They had $7 to their name, and bought a hog with that money.
Their long marriage survived economic bad times, illnesses, World War II, Dad's service in the Navy at Pearl Harbor, poverty, working in the coal mines and living in the coal camps.
Through it all, Mom was a strong woman who raised four strong daughters.
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