Last week I wrote about
a bride's book that I found at a local antique store and my quest to return it to it's rightful owner. The book belonged to Betty, a young bride from California, and included all the memories from her wedding in 1953. Included in the antique store find was Betty's teenage dream scrapbook with content ranging from magazine clippings of her dream of a future life of marital bliss to various scraps from her teen years. These two books enthralled me. They symbolized what many young girls of the 1950s hoped their lives would become: June Cleaver in a Leave-it-to-Beaver world.
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| One of Betty's "dream kitchens." |
Yet, my initial forays in finding Betty and her new husband, Charles, came up empty. Then on a re-attack I came across some distressing news. Betty and Charles were divorced, 21 years after they married. Both of them remarried within a couple of years of the divorce, but apparently those marriages went south as well, as Betty divorced her second husband after only two months and Charles divorced after only a year or so. I now understood why she got rid of her scrapbooks...too many memories she wanted to forget. Life had not panned out like she had dreamed it would.
Just as I was chalking up the Betty and Charles story as another sad but frequent story of love gone wrong, I happened to look at the California Marriage Index entry for Betty. She was listed twice, once with Charles and once with her second husband. I had not thought twice about this because it was a fact. But this particular index lists California marriages from 1960-1985...Betty and Charles were married in 1953. I scanned for the date and there it was:
Charles and Betty's marriage...their second one. On their 25th anniversary, no less. I was ecstatic to find this. I have no idea what happened to Betty and Charles, but I don't care. I'm going to stop researching and live with my own dream...that the young girl finally found her happily ever after.
4 comments:
Not just their anniversary but Valentine's Day - how romantic is that?
That is a very intriguing find and story. Do you think that Betty got rid of the books on accident? Maybe she threw them away but they ended up in the giveaway bag instead. So, she remarried to Charles. Did you try and find them in the U.S. Public Records Volumes? Love the kitchen, it's quite retro!
Sweet story! Thanks for sharing!
That would be one of my dream kitchens too! I love the green!
What a wonderful story! Thanks for sharing. :)
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