Marriage, 1953

We both had already received our endowments so we attended a session at the Salt Lake Temple. Leon’s uncle Harold and aunt Vera went with us.
We decided to get married at conference time since that would be when my parents would be coming to Utah. We called them and gave them quite a surprise. When Mom was talking to Leon, she told him she didn’t know him and he replied that "Barbara did!" She told us later that when they met him; they had stopped by Provo on their way to Salt Lake City, that she cried all the way because he looked so young. He did look young.
We chose April 7 for our wedding day. I spent the night before with Mona at her motel but went to where my parents were staying that evening and Mom washed my hair for me. Leon’s parents and sister came up by bus from Albuquerque. Leon and I went to the county building to get the marriage license and he forgot to put money in the meter so he got a ticket! My aunt Lucy loaned me her wedding dress. The two sets of parents, two Uruguayan missionaries, Don McBride and Jim McGregor, were present at the ceremony. Dad had asked Elder Spencer W. Kimball to marry us. They were very well acquainted with him. The only thing I remember is his advice to have our children as the Lord sends them. Outside the temple Mona, her friend Verda, and Joan were waiting for us. Leon and I left everyone and had lunch at a drug store and then went to see the movie Peter Pan. We had an open house that evening at my aunt Naoma’s home. Many former Uruguayan missionaries came.
I had always planned on having Mona sing at my reception but it didn’t work out, Naoma’s piano didn’t work, but at least she was there.
We spent the night at a motel then drove to Provo to our apartment on 5th West. My roommates had broken into it and made a mess of everything! I guess they thought it was funny but it was just work for us to get everything straightened out.
Two days later I went with Leon and the orchestra on a one-day tour. The next week, I went with him and the band on a tour of Southern Utah. What a honeymoon, the two of us and 76 other band members. I passed out the programs. It was still fun.
Leon returned to school, also working at the State Hospital and I applied several places for work. I started out at Dixon-Taylor-Russell Dept. store and worked for a week as a secretary when I heard from the telephone company. That was a better place to work and so began there. I usually worked the 1 to 10:00 pm. shift. A second cousin Joan, daughter of my Mom’s favorite cousin Al Worsley, started at the same time with me.
Leon had dropped out of his AF ROTC courses so he lost his deferment from the draft. Instead of waiting to be drafted he volunteered for the draft in the army. He went in in December, 1953. We thought he would go to Ft. Ord in California, but since his home address had been New Mexico, he went to Ft. Bliss in El Paso, TX. Instead of staying with my folks in California I stayed with his parents in Albuquerque, NM. I was now expecting our first baby.