After the sealing, we took Mom and Martin and Laura over to the train station so they could catch a train home. This left Karen and I alone to start our honeymoon. Our honeymoon consisted essentially of the drive back to Battle Creek. We took about 3-4 days to come back (took our time, in other words). We went through Yellowstone National Park and then came east back to Michigan. I don’t remember the exact route we drove, but we were young and in love and it didn’t really matter where we were.
We got back to Battle Creek where there were two receptions planned for us. The first was at the Battle Creek Ward house and included my family and all of our Battle Creek friends and members of the church. The second which was a couple days later was in Quincy and I think was held at the High School where Karen went to school. There we were able to see all of Karen’s family (a lot more than me) and her friends that she grew up with in Quincy. Both receptions were nice and we got a lot of loot.
In fact, if I remember right, we couldn’t take it all with us, so we stored some of the presents at the farm and picked them up later when we came back on one of our many trips home. Our next step was to drive back to New Orleans where I had to go back to work and we needed to start our lives as a newly married couple.
We moved into the 4-Plex that I mentioned earlier. A couple who were members of the church lived right next door to us. That may be why we moved. I don’t remember the reason. They were the Roberts, Marshall and LuWanna. I think I spelled that right. I think he was going to school for an advanced degree, but I don’t remember the details.
That first year, we got used to each other. I remember one Christmas. It was either our first or second when Karen got me the entire Journal of Discourses for a present. The reason it stands out is because there are, like 16 volumes of books and she wrapped them all individually. It looked like I had lots of presents. I went to work at IBM, fixing the key punches and stuff. We were really poor, but it didn’t seem to matter. In August of 1967, we became three as Matthew was born.
Dad