What kind of wedding did you and grandpa have?

You will be surprised that I am copying my answer about where we got married and the whole story from an interview that Alysia Gabe Countryman wrote when she was in fifth grade. Can you believe that? I have kept it all these years! For the answer to the question about our marriage I will copy what Alysia wrote! (In future blogs I will copy what she wrote about the interviews she had with her Grandpa Galen Neal and Grandma Lois Neal separately.) She called her story that she wrote about our lives & marriage-- TOGETHER FOREVER—WRITTEN BY ALYSIA GABE IN 5th GRADE Love and marriage for Galen Neal and Lois Bearse began when they meet at the Methodist Church in Shell Rock. Their first date was to a boxing match at Electric Park in Waterloo, Grandpa was 22 at the time and Grandma was 19. Galen drove a 1941 blue Ford. and they double dated with a couple of friends.Grandpa and Grandma dated for two years before Grandpa asked Grandma to marry him. They were engaged for one year and then united in love on September 12, 1942, in Princeton, Missouri. For their honey moon, they went to Boloxi, Miss. Grandpa and Grandma will have been married for 57 years on September 12. Out of all their anniversaries Grandpa says that their 50th was his favorite because, they received a VCR from their children. Grandma says her favorite was their 25th because it was their first trip to visit Grandpa’s sister in Hawaii. GRANDMA LOIS NEAL’S ADDITION This is Grama Neal writing a little addition to what Alysia wrote in out interview with her. To explain why we did not have a church wedding was because Galen had an offer to teach Mathematics at an Air Corps in Biloxi, Miss. He had to be down there to accept the job in two weeks! In Iowa when you got a marriage lisence there was a 6 week wait before you could get married. Remember this was just after Pearl Harbor was bombed and Galen was so excited to be chosen to teach at an Army Air Corps Base in Biloxi. We asked Dorothy (Galen’s sister) and her husband Don Walter to go with us to Princeton. Dorothy was expecting a baby in January so she did not feel like going. Consequently,since Don and Galen were such good friends ( Galen had played in Don’s band for several Summers by then) so Don consented to go with us. When we arrived in Marshalltown it was early in the morning and Don was always so jolly and so much fun that it was a great trip. Don liked to sing so we had entertainment all the way there. We arrived at the court house in Princeton and got our marriage lisence. Galen knew I really wanted to get married in a church so he inquired if there was a Methodist Minister in Princeton. They told him that the Methodist Minister lived right close to the court house (which was quite convenient) so in no time at all we said our wedding vows in the home of the Methodist Minister and the Minister’s wife and Don Walter was our witness. ( War time causes a lot of changes in plans.) We stayed at the Russel Lampson Hotel in Waterloo on our wedding night and the next day was Sunday and they were having a Neal Reunion near Shell Rock that day so we went to the Reunion with Galen’s folks and everyone congratulated us when they heard we were married. We left for Biloxi the next week and Galen could have had the teaching job, but we could not find any place to live down there so we came back through New Orleans and visited Galen’s former room mate at Cornell College and his new bride. It was a wonderful Honeymoon trip anyway!!. We came back to the farm and as I told about in a former blog we decided to move into the tenant house on the farm and I am so glad it turned out that way. It was wonderful that we could be near Galen’s folks while our kids were growing up. They loved their Grandpas & Grandmas. My folks, Grandpa and Grandma Bearse, were living near Charles City at the time. (I forgot to mention that the St. Charles M. Church where my Dad was a minister at the time heard I got married so they had a surprise wedding shower for me. That was a lot of fun since I had lots of good friends in that church.) Galen and I lived happily ever after! Well, most of the time anyway! Ha Ha

What jobs did you and grandpa have? How was working different? What was the pay?

Before I tell you about our jobs I should give you a little summary about our High School and College days. Grandpa graduated from Shell Rock High School in 1936 and there were 36 in his class. After High School he went to college for three years. The first year he attended Wartburg College, the second year he went to UNI and the third year he went to Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, Iowa. I don’t know why he went to so many different colleges. I guess I never asked him. I do know that Bob Hickle was attending UNI and since they were good friends I think they drove to college his second year. Cornell was a Methodist college and he had a cousin, Betty Rowley, attending college there so that probably was the reason he went there. His plans were to be a teacher eventually. He would have been a good teacher if he had finished his last year of college, but then he also thought about farming and of course was always around in the Summers to help his Dad with the farming. It is too bad he didn’t finish his last year of college, but at that time I think he thought he should stay home and help his Dad. As I explained in one of my other blogs that when the war came along in 1942 and his Dad decided to retire from farming he gave up the idea of teaching. Galen did enjoy reading and studying. After we were married he was nominated to be on the Rural Electric Cooperative Board (they met once a month) and we really enjoyed our “get togethers”with the board members & their wives. Once a year we got to take a free trip to the National Conventions. That was a real treat!! We got to go to St. Louis the first year and that is when we really got acquainted with our friends Edna and Leonard Hauser. They were so much fun!! We kept in touch with them & their family for years Later on Galen was chosen to be on the Butler County Mutual Board and also went to a school to learn the Insurance Business. That was a good business when he got older and hired a farm manager. That turned out to be a very good thing since the farm manager had a lot of good ideas on how to improve the farm. All the years we were farming we were trying to buy the farm. That was not easy since farming is quite a gamble! However it was a good life and at least I could be a stay at home Mom and help with the chores. We did have a hired man some of the time when we had the tenant house on the farm. Bill really enjoyed being in the 4-H Club and took some animals to the Allison County Fair every year. He had lots of fun going to the fair with the Harms twins. Carol was such a help to her DAD. She started running the tractor and cultivating corn before she even had a driver’s lisence. Her Dad said she could cultivate crops better than anyone he could hire. Bill & Betty had a pony to ride called Princess. I wish we could have had enough money to get Bill a nice riding horse when he was older, but he really liked his pony. He could handle the pony and horses can be dangerous. I didn’t worry about the kids riding their pony. We didn’t have a lot of money. but we always took a trip every year and we really enjoyed our trips together. I remember we really had a wonderful trip to the Black Hills one year! Bill always liked to stopat a motel that had a swimming pool. I remember when we went to California one year that was the most important thing was to find a motel with a swimming pool after we crossed the desert.

When I graduated from High School in 1938 my parents wanted me to go to Wartburg college and take a two- year business course. I wanted to work in an office and be a secretary. I really enjoyed my two years at Wartburg and got acquainted with a lot of nice students. I also enjoyed being in the Wartburg Choir. After I graduated from Wartburg my first job was working as a secretary in a Dentist’s office on the 7th floor of Black’s Bldg. in Waterloo. I made $6.00 a week and my room and board.WOW!! I worked there a while and then Galen’s Father told me about a job opening at the REC Office in Allison. I liked that job much better and liked living in Allison. Galen was living at home then so we got to date on the week-ends and he also got a new blue ford!!. I loved working at the REC Office. I learned a lot there and the workers there were all very nice. I found out that working on electric lines is a very dangerous job!. I would not care to be a line-man! My folks lived near Charles City then so my last job I had was working at the Oliver Tractor Works in Charles City in the office & then Galen proposed to me and we went to a jewelry store and he bought me an engagement ring and the rest is history. When we started farming after we were married I had to learn to hunt eggs, raise chickens and 3 kids. It took me a while to learn those jobs, I couldn’t go to college for that job! I have had a very busy and happy life so far and being a Grandma and being with my friends here at the Meadows is a wonderful life! I am so glad I have so many grandchildren and great grandchildren!! I have two wonderful daughters, Carol and Betty and a wonderful son, Bill, to take care of me also!!. I don’t mind getting old as long as I can enjoy my family and friends.