DuWayne & Helen
When Helen and I became serious enough to contemplate marriage, we were greatly concerned about the fact that we were second cousins. My Grandmother Sanders and Helen’s Grandfather Morris Wilson were brother and sister. We did much praying and soul searching concerning this problem and finally went to Ivan J. Barrett, our seminary teacher and also a member of our stake presidency. He suggested that we all kneel in prayer around his office desk. After he prayed, we all had a good positive feeling about our continued pursuit of marriage. However, because of comments made by some of my uncles, we were still greatly concerned and frustrated. In answer to prayer, we were guided to go to Brother Roundy, our stake patriarch, to receive a patriarchal blessing to see if the answer would be given there. On October 28, 1945, we went to Brother Roundy for my patriarchal blessing. We didn’t warn Brother Roundy of our concern about marriage, but we both felt the answer was very plainly stated. At that point, we went to our parents with our desires and my parents readily gave their permission.
I guessed that Helen’s parents had given their permission since they consented to ride into Salt Lake with us to buy an engagement ring. Since I hadn’t formally asked Helen’s father for her hand, I spent most of the trip nervously trying to get up enough courage to do so. We were nearly to Salt Lake by the time I finally asked the question. Helen’s father was sitting behind me as I was driving, and so I couldn’t see his face. He never responded to my question for what seemed an eternity. I am sure that it was two or three minutes before he said anything. Dad finally gave his permission, and Helen and I breathed a great sigh of relief. Dad later told us that the reason he took so long to respond to my question was because he couldn’t think of my name. He said that all of my brothers’ names came to his mind, but he drew a blank on my name. I guess he was a little nervous too.
While in Salt Lake, we stayed at Helen’s Uncle Harvey Dalton’s home. We bought Helen’s miniature diamond ring at a supposedly wholesale jewelry outlet (Dahnkens). It cost me $127 which was about one-third of my total summer’s wages. Needless to say, we were so happy we could hardly contain ourselves as we drove back home.
The next problem was to set a date for our marriage. Helen’s mother said that the St. George Temple was closed for remodeling, and she would allow us to marry when it reopened. She had understood that it would reopen in late spring, but the temple presidency decided to open the temple for a couple of weeks in December for marriages. We set the date for December 10, 1947, much to Helen’s mother’s chagrin. Thora felt tricked as the wedding date came about six months earlier than she had first contemplated.
We were married late at night, getting out of the temple at midnight. We drove to Cedar City to the Lunt Hotel to spend the night. I well remember how uneasy I felt as we went up to the hotel desk to ask for a room. The attendant asked our names and I said, “DuWayne Squire and Helen Gubler.” I blushed greatly as I quickly said, “I mean Helen Squire.” There were two or three people in the lobby and their eyes were all upon us. I am sure that none of them believed that we were married. My habit of blushing in my shyness and embarrassment certainly didn’t help our cause. We were both further embarrassed when the attendant asked where our luggage was. We had come with a small overnight case only. We were both still flushed a bright red when the attendant showed us our room and I gave him his twenty-five cent tip.
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| DuWayne & Helen This picture was taken several months after their wedding at Helen's sister, Ramona's, wedding. |
The next morning we got up and had breakfast and then rushed home since we had much to do in getting the church house ready for our reception. We held our reception in the same hall that church services were held as it was also used for all cultural events. We didn’t have any decorations, not even a wedding cake. By the time all of our cousins, relatives, and friends showed up, we had all of the benches filled to capacity and a large group dancing on the hardwood floor of the chapel. At that time, people came to a wedding reception to spend the evening in dancing, eating, and enjoying a program where the M.C. roasted the bride and groom and announced the program numbers. After the program, the bride and groom had to dance alone until some family members finally took pity on us and joined in.
There was much talk of shivareeing us by Helen’s brothers, my brothers, and friends. This made us very uneasy as we had heard many tales from aunts and uncles who were taken to the mountains where the husband was chained or tied to a tree, then left to try to get loose any way he possibly could, and then walk back to town. If the groom didn’t make it back by morning, they would go out and get him. Sometimes they tied both the groom and the bride to a tree. Other times they would put the bride on a front fender of a car and the groom on another and drive them through neighboring towns and cities honking their horns or else they would parade them through restaurants and movie houses.
With this threat hanging over us, like most newlyweds we took evasive action and made a hasty retreat when no one was looking. We went down through the basement, out the basement door, and ran for Helen’s home. When we got there, we went to her room and locked the door. We were so tired that we laid on the bed with our clothes on to wait until we felt safe to proceed on our honeymoon. It was 7:30 a.m. when we awoke. We got up and changed out of our wedding clothes and grabbed our suitcases. Mother insisted we have breakfast. We then went up to tell my folks goodbye. By then, the school students were waiting for the bus, and so we waited for the bus to come as we were too shy to take the ribbing from the high school students as we departed.
I had a 1938 Chevrolet four-door sedan that had at least 200,000 miles on it which we took on our honeymoon. When we got to it, we found that we could hardly see out of any of the windows as our friends had painted it up so much and tied strings of tin cans underneath it. We made a noisy retreat as we left for Pasadena, California. I only had $20 to my name, so I borrowed $100 from Dad for our honeymoon. We drove to Las Vegas before stopping for something to eat. With a feeling of adventure, we put our change in the nickel slot machines before proceeding onto Barstow, California. We were able to get a room even though it was fairly late in the evening when we arrived. Since my car was so conspicuous with all the writing of “Just Married” and crude jokes on it and since every time we stopped for gas or to eat we were the subject of much kidding. I got up early the next morning and took a can of water out and used my handkerchief to try to wash the car. I wasn’t too successful, and since they didn’t have car wash places in those days, we still got much more attention than we desired until we got back home.
We got to Pasadena the next day and went to the oldest and most famous hotel in town and were able to get a room for the next three nights. One night we were entertained by one of Don’s best buddies from the army days in the South Pacific Islands. Don’s buddy’s parents had us over for a delicious dinner, and then they took us all over Los Angeles. Our eyes bunged out at the sights of Signal Hill and the harbor at night. We were also overawed by the freeways, the bridges, the ships in the harbor, and the traffic going at breakneck speeds.
We had a great time on our honeymoon, but it was brought to an abrupt halt when we arrived back home. We were faced with the problem of finding a place to rent and finding enough furniture to set up housekeeping, and then there was the problem of Helen returning to high school. We were able to rent Helen’s Uncle Wayne Wilson’s home for about $25 a month, and with all the used furniture contributed by our folks, we were soon set up for modified housekeeping.
Helen was in the middle of her senior year at Hurricane High School and had to attend school for half a day. I would drive Helen to school each morning, and then I would go to work at Hurricane Motor Company. At noon, I would pick Helen up, and we would drive home for lunch and then drop Helen off at her folk’s store where Helen worked until I got home after work each day. Helen graduated with her class at Hurricane High School the following spring.
We rented Wayne Wilson’s old home for a few months, but the mice and the $25 per month drove us out. We moved to Helen’s Grandmother Gubler’s home and lived in the upstairs. As I recall, the rent was only $15 per month and that fit our budget much better. We lived there until one day John Judd came in the garage and asked me if I would be interested in buying their home and the 11 acres across the street from it. He stated that he and his wife wanted to sell to someone that they respected and who they felt would keep up the place. At first, I was very elated, but when he told me the asking price was $13,000 for the land and home, I began to realize with my income it would be beyond my reach. I was only making $125 per month, and even with Helen working in the store for our groceries, it would be next to impossible to make the payments. I went home and talked to Dad and, to my surprise, found him very excited about the prospect of owning that land. He said that land was some of the most fertile and had the best water rights on the center canal of any land in LaVerkin.
I found that Dad had secretly desired to own that land since he had moved to LaVerkin. Dad suggested that if I really wanted the place, then he would buy the west six acres for the down payment of $5,000 and I could make the payments for the home and the five acres until I paid off the $8,000 balance. Helen and I were very excited to have a place of our own, but the payments were over $100, and so we had less than $25 per month to live on. With Helen working in the store and receiving free groceries for her services and with many free dinners from Mom and Dad when we stopped there after picking Helen up from work, we barely made the payments each month.
My brother, Phil, knowing of our financial bind, suggested that I might consider joining the National Guard. He said that although he was called up in World War II, history indicated that we couldn’t possibly afford to get into another war for the next 25 years or so. I joined up for the $15 or so each month for two days drill exercises. The funds did really help. I also accepted a job with E. J. Graff at his chicken ranch (on the north end of town in the old CCC buildings) as night watchman. My hours were from 2:00 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. each morning. If I rushed, I would barely get home and grab a bite to eat on the way to Hurricane Motor Co. to start work at 8:00 a.m. At this time, we were doing quite a bit of socializing with Verla and Burdell Reusch and Thell and Elaine Gubler and would be up late at night playing cards or some such game. Once in a while, I didn’t hear the alarm at 1:30 a.m. since I may have only been in bed for an hour or two, so we brought in a #2 wash tub and put it by our bed. We then wound up the “Big Ben” alarm clock and put it in the center of the tub. When the alarm went off, I would usually explode out of bed since it made a terrible racket. Believe it or not, we even slept through that a time or two.
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