Martha's story, page 3

Well, getting back to my story, this young man’s name was Gene Franklin.  From that Sunday on we started dating twice a week. One Thursday he didn’t come and I didn’t hear from him. I was ready to leave Saturday night but he got there before I left. He explained that he had been sick, so I understood.

            I was thrilled to be graduating high school (May 1951) but I didn’t know what I was going to do. I thought about going into nursing or taking a business course. I had an aunt and uncle from West Virginia and after they visited us and started to head home, they invited me to visit them. So I visited them for a few weeks. It seemed that Gene must have worried about whether I would come back. My aunt and uncle offered to send me to business school, if I stayed. But I came back home and Gene was there that weekend and asked me to marry him. He also had a ring with him. Of course I said “Yes!” We also started double dating with another couple in our church. Their names were Doris Howell (our pastor’s daughter) and J.D. Early. Since we were both engaged, we decided to have a double wedding at our church on December 22^nd of that year, at 6:00 p.m. We were so excited!