She Can Marry Whomever She Wants

After the war, Dad returned home to finish his senior year in high school.  His experiences in WWII made the students seemed immature and foolish, but he persisted and graduated from Forsyth High School on the sixteenth day of May, 1946.  Mom graduated two years later on the fourteenth day of May, 1948.  I don’t know how they met, but I believe Dad started courting Mom after she graduated.  They eventually fell in love and decided to get married.  Mom, whose parents never owned an automobile nor learned to drive, was very proud that Dad drove a shiny new, 1947 Oldsmobile Sedan.  In those days, you didn’t tell your parents you were getting married; you asked for their permission.  So Dad dutifully drove his Oldsmobile to Old Hilda to ask Preston Ira and Nola Weaver Roberts permission to marry their youngest daughter, Ruby Dean Roberts.  Pres was easy – he had two simple requests: (1) they needed to wait until Ruby turned eighteen and (2) they needed to be very certain of their decision.  Nola was a different story.  When Dad asked her permission to marry Ruby, Nola told him matter-of-factly, “She can marry whomever she wants!”  Dad was caught off guard by Granny Roberts’ bluntness.  He misinterpreted her response to mean Granny really wanted Ruby to choose someone else.  She actually meant exactly what she said – Ruby, not Pres and Nola, should choose whom she wanted to marry.  Regardless of her intent, Dad set out to win Nola over.  Early on, he and Mom would come to Pres and Nola’s house every Saturday night; Dad would play cards with the boys and Mom would spent time talking with the girls and helping in the kitchen.  After Pres and Nola moved to Oregon, he drove Mom to Hood River so she could spend time with her parents during the Christmas holidays.  Later, he opened their home to Mom’s family and had the privilege of having many members of the Roberts family stay with them over the years.  After Grandpa passed in 1959, Dad built a small bedroom for Granny on our enclosed back porch.  This small bedroom became her home until her death in 1979.  As Granny aged and her health declined, she grew very fond of Dad and would often ask Mom to get him to help lift or move her.  It greatly pleased Dad that Granny would ask for him by name.  During the days that I stayed with Mom following Dad’s funeral in 2011, she said, “I believe my family truly loved your Daddy . . . and I think my mom [Nola] was pleased with my choice”.  I think she was right.