Celebrating 60 Years of Marriage, 2013

My parents married the day after Christmas in 1953 which was a convenience for their kids as they aged. I mean, what do you get for parents who are celebrating 50 to 60 years of mar,riage? I don't remember the gifts my brothers gave, but I think the best gift I gave them was an expensive meal ticket to one of the fancier restaurants in Lynchburg, Virginia. where they were living at the time. As kids, we just gave them silly gifts. (note to myself to remember the pear).

I'll have to go through my notes to understand why they chose that date for their wedding. I believe it was because dad was in the Air Force and he had limited leave. I learned a few interesting facts just this past year as I went through articles in papers at Newspapers.com...They were married at the Baptist Church in Clifton Forge, then had a reception at my mother's uncle's now-defunct restaurant just at the edge of town. Afterwards, they honeymooned in Williamsburg. Dad didn't have a dime left after all that hoopla. I think they rented a cabin in Williamsburg for $10 per night, because they owners felt for their circumstances. Dad was a born salesman.

My parents were always sweet to each other on their anniversaries. Mom would make dad a special meal, dad would have flowers for mom, and so on and so on. I'm sure I'll remember more about their anniversaries as I write, but the one that stands out for me the most was their last anniversary together. They celebrated their 60th anniversary togther on 26 December 2013. I managed to remember to get a notice and a photo together for the local newspaper in time, which was important to my mother. They also received a beautiful cake from their Sunday School class. I still have the brown butterfly topper, floating to the right in the photo. The butterflies weren't edible.

The anniversary I didn't note at all was the one where dad decided to finally bury mom. The only reason I noticed was when I went to my Facebook memories and saw the image of the gravesite. That image rocked me back on my heels, because I didn't understand why dad wanted to bury mom on such a cold day in December. It just didn't occur to me at all that that day would have marked their 63rd anniversary in 2017.

Mom was cremated and her cremains went into a beautiful urn that she picked out the day before she took to her bed to die. When we picked up the urn, it was in a box, and dad kept it in that box for almost a full year. My baby brother visited him at one point and said, "Dad, why don't you take her out of the box, man?" Dad looked puzzled and then laughed, from what I heard. He had forgotten she was there, but he didn't forget. It was like she was a Schrödinger's wife...there and not there.

So he took that beautiful urn out of the box, and two years later he told me he was ready to let her go. I think he was mulling over how much longer he was going to live, and he didn't want to put the pressure on me to get mom in the ground along with his cremains when the time came. So I called Tommy Slusser at Nicely's Funeral Home in Clifton Forge, and he agreed to meet up with us the day after Christmas to bury mom.

What we didn't know was that public works, which takes care of the cemetery, had the week off for the holidays. Tommy had dug the hole for mom's urn himself, and he didn't expect anything from us. Mom's stone was already laid, and all he did was dig a deep hole--with a shovel--for the urn right between mom's stone and where dad's stone would be. They were sharing one plot, and I do believe dad also ordered his stone that year and paid for it.

We went to visit dad's brother afterward, and I could tell that dad felt a great sense of relief after dealing with what, I'm sure, was one of the more difficult things he had to do in his life.

It was over. She was in the ground, finally, and he would join her two years after his death in 2022. My father donated his body to science in Richmond, and when they finished with him, they sent his cremains to Tommy. The timing was off to make his burial an anniversary thing--which I never even thought about, honestly--so I just did what I could do. They're together now, and the synchronicity of several years between death and burial for them both is enough for me.

My parents both are buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Clifton Forge. I'm still working on their Find A Grave memorials. You can find them at Joanne Elizabeth Eanes Goin and Robert Meredith Goin, Sr.

NOTE to self: I know I have a photo of mom and dad on their 60th. 

Also, found the newspaper clipping on 5 January 2014. I blurred out the section that listed names of the living. Of course, I'm an historian. I forgot to note the date, page, and column of this article, but I can tell you the mention was in the Lynchburg News and Advance.