71 years later-love still wins

   "All because two people fell in love"~
John B. Scott, Jr. and Lois Scott-July 31, 1940


I miss hearing Mom tell the story of how she and daddy eloped that day.  Heck, when I first heard it I didn't even know what that word "eloped" meant.  But I soon learned and every July 31st that rolled around after that, we kids would sit wide-eyed and pay attention as the story of their marriage was lovingly retold once again.


Mom and Daddy loved each other very much and by the summer of 1940 they had decided to be married.  But my maternal grandparents, Andrew and Catherine Brown, must not have liked my dad too much.  In the weeks preceding their July 31st marriage, I am sure they must have tried to dissuade my mom from making him her choice for a husband. Not sure how long it took for them to figure out that all of their pleading and begging for her to make another "choice" was not going to do any good.  Lois Scott was stubborn...yes MOM, I said that!  You WERE stubborn. LOL, and that strong will and determination was going to make the decision about who to marry.


You know, the really goofy thing about all of that was that we kids never got a straight answer as to why they felt that way.  To us, our daddy was the most wonderful man alive and we couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't have chosen him to be the "one" for our mom. 


Be all things as they may, in the early morning hours of July 31, 1940, Mom wrote a short note to her parents, dressed in her best outfit, and crawled out the window of her bedroom at the family home on the Sandhills farm.  I can't imagine that she had slept much that night before and I'm guessing that my Dad didn't get alot of sleep either.


She met Daddy at a pre-arranged time and place....6 a.m. at the very end of the lane of her parent's farm.   It brings tears to my eyes to imagine how much they must have loved one another, especially to do such a "daring deed" as to disobey their parents and run off to get married.  


Don't know how long it took for them to make the journey from the farm just between Burrton and Halstead to the Sedgwick County Courthouse in Wichita.  But they made it!  And at noon that day, the Justice of the Peace for the city of Wichita pronounced them "Mr. and Mrs. John B. Scott, Jr.". 


I would be so remiss if I told you the story and left out the BEST PART-the strawberry pop story.  After the ceremony was over, I'm sure the reality hit them as to what they had just done. They might have been married but they were still two very young people.....Daddy only 17 and Mom two years older, age 19.  They'd run off to marry against their parent's wishes and now had to go back home and "face the music".  But they didn't worry-


It was a very hot day, long before the days of AC in ANYTHING!  They were thirsty, so before they made the long journey home again, they used the money left in Daddy's pocket to buy a bottle of cold strawberry soda from a pop machine there.  And so they sat on the courthouse steps that "fateful" day and passed the bottle back and forth between themselves, sharing their own personal "toast" to a future together.  


I can't even imagine what that first meeting back home with my grandparents must have been like....but whatever was said, it didn't matter.  Eventually everyone figured it out that "love wins" in the end and in no time at all,  Daddy became a part of their family.  The seven little babies born because of their love for one another said words of "thanks" as well!

This is mom and dad and 5 of their seven kids on July 31, 1982.  Daddy was dying from cancer and we knew that his "fight" with that awful disease would soon be done.  We wanted to give them, the wedding "reception" that they never had that day.  So we kids and our spouses and children joined them for supper complete with wedding cake, mints, punch and gifts! 


 Normally, Daddy would have put up a fuss about doing something like that.  But I guess knowing that your days are "so numbered" allowed him to see how very important it was to allow us kids to honor their life together.  5 months later, he was gone and life never was the same again for any of us.  They made it 42 years~not too bad for two kids who many thought would NEVER make it together.  


Later this afternoon, their children who still remain will join together with their own families and friends to celebrate the life that they enjoyed so much during that 42 year span of time.  We'll be in a place they called "Home" for so very long....Haven, Kansas.  We surely shall say a prayer of thanksgiving that despite all they must have had going against them, that their love for each other was strong enough to survive.  Why would anyone have ever doubted?