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After a five month engagement, Jim Dixon and Lois Schildmeier were married on a Friday evening, January 26, 1951. The ceremony was performed by the Reverend Franklin in the Noble Street Methodist Church parsonage. Honor attendants were Jerry Oaks and Barbara Mills. The only family in attendance was both sets of parents -- George & Della Dixon and Herbert and Bernice Schildmeier.
The story has always been told that George had to "sign for Jim" giving permission for him to marry since he was not yet 20 years old -- by a week! (Uncle Don may be able to shed some light on the issue of "why" the restriction at that time.)
A small reception was held after the ceremony at George & Della's home. (Interesting note: Uncle Don did not hang around because he had to go to an Anderson Indians basketball game.)
Jim borrowed George's car to travel to Cincinnati for a weekend honeymoon. The weather was very bad and travel was difficult. Lois says that while George & Della never said anything, she is sure they were worried and "glad to see their car come back safely".
For the first two years of their marriage Jim split his time between a small apartment in Anderson where Lois remained and finishing his degree at GMI in Flint.
1 comment:
Wayne sent in the information about Uncle Jim and Aunt Lois's wedding.
I'm glad to be the first to comment and ask some questions.
First, I hope that no cruelty was used in obtaining this information from Aunt Lois! I trust that Tonia and Wayne used deception, rather than physical restraint, to get Aunt Lois to talk.
Secondly, leaving siblings out of the wedding ceremony was pretty common back then. Curt said that Uncle Warren regretted failing to invite the Aunt Wilma's brothers to their wedding, but just forgot about it at the time. My mom says wedding ceremonies just weren't generally the big deal then that they became in our generation. Given the lack of ceremony, we boomers have to admit they managed to forge together some impressive partnerships.
Given the value of an Anderson Indian basketball ticket back then, we understand completely Uncle Don's decision to opt out of the end of the reception.
One thing I notice in the wedding party picture is that you can see the transition from Della the dark-haired beauty to Mammaw Dixon, the matronly grandmother we knew and loved. I really was having a hard time believing those pictures of my grandmother as a younger woman until I saw this picture.
For those of you not familiar with GMI, the college ran by GM had students attend classes in Flint for six weeks (at least in Jay's case in the late 60's)and then come back to the plants and work for six weeks in a rotation throughout the college program.
I bet that Uncle Jim was really glad to get home and I wonder if Aunt Lois ever trekked up to Flint to see him.
The most obvious question that comes to mind is... how did they meet?
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