I suppose it takes a lot of nerve to make a blog post like this.
But, it just seems fitting, for some reason.
My marriage to James Edward Elfers took place on June 1, 1985 at Newark Christian Fellowship in Kemblesville, PA.
Officiants were Reverend Gerald (Neil) Uniacke and Reverend Bruce Latshaw.
This was the first wedding Neil had performed, as I recall, and was the second wedding on the property in the church’s partially finished Barn. In fact, members referred to the Christian Community as “The Barn.”
When I looked for a wedding dress, I was asked where I was getting married, and I told her it would be in a barn. I was shown a clearance gown for $80 which seemed to be perfect…it was sort of a Princess Leia style dress (the bridal shop woman described it as such).
It was a simple wedding. I recall having a small amount of cash for the reception…perhaps $150 or so…and the church ladies prepared lovely sandwiches and much more – a “wedding tea” they called it – and I remember being shocked that among our cards/gifts was a cash gift from them (or the church? I forget whom…I believe it was from several ladies….) greater than the amount I had given for the reception.
My Uncle Bill gave me away, answering the pastoral question “And who gives this woman to be married to this man” with, “On behalf of my brother, Rodney, I do.”
It was warm and sunny. My mother had been released from the Delaware State Hospital weeks before, after another stay of 2-3 months, as I recall.
I kind of recall her brother, Roderick, gave a monetary gift to the Pastors, but I am unsure. I was naive about many things, including that it was customary to gift the Pastors for performing the wedding service.
I remember after the reception, the wedding party traveled up Kirkwood Highway to Olan Mills Photography Studio, where we had some professional photos taken – I think I had a coupon for a free 8 x 10 or something, as was typically promoted.
During the ceremony, it was discovered that my maid-of-honor did NOT have the ring! There had been some confusion – someone had knocked on the nursery door where the women were getting ready and said, “This is for Joyce, Eileen’s Maid-of-Honor.”
My good friend Joyce glanced at the box with none of us realizing what was in it (ha ha) and she said, “That’s not mine.”
At the altar, when I turned to Joyce and there was no ring, there was some whispering that went on…someone told me somehow that it was down in the nursery, and somehow the message was passed to Jim’s brother, Dave, who walked down the aisle and stairs to retrieve it! (edit on evening of 6/1/22 as I re-read this and have watched the entire video! : I “think” (pretty sure actually) that when I was supposed to get the ring from Joyce and turned and she didn’t know about/have any ring, that it was probably JIM who whispered to me – it may be clearer on the audio version with the microphone, ha ha…he said something like “I sent it down”……”to the nursery, for Joyce”…”in a little box…” And then by that time Bruce was saying essentially, well….”oops…there’s some miscommunication where the ring is…let’s put one on in the Spirit!” Ha ha, I do recall and you can tell somewhat in the video, being flustered…I simply didn’t want to “pretend” to be putting a ring on Jim…so…I kinda fixed it, awkwardly….once I knew what happened I think I whispered to Jim to tell Dave to go get it! Ha ha…Dave was momentarily puzzled as I recall but then non-chalantly strolled from up front, down to the nursery and back up, while I kinda recall looking at Neil and wanting them to stall things somehow…so then when the ring was obtained I nervously joked, “we got the ring!” It was so awkward…I mean…a wedding is a day where every eye is on what was happening…..it did make for a story…I’m sure there are always gliches in weddings…with Joe and I, somehow the sound got turned off with the song selected for my grown sons to escort me on each arm up to the ceremony area…as I think on this, I could possibly find some personally prophetic symbol about each of these mishaps during the wedding itself…in retrospect…but…likely it was just a mishap of some sort…with some retrospective personal contemplation since both marriages ended in divorce. Hmm…)
I was nervous and I think I made some little quip about the ring – “it’s coming” – or something…and Pastor Bruce said “we are putting a ring on, in the Spirit…”
Dave returned with the ring, which I placed on Jim’s finger, and I nervously turned to those staring and watching and joked, “we got the ring!”
There was not general dancing at the reception, but Jim and I did share a first dance to “We’ve Only Just Begun” by the Carpenters.
Jim and I didn’t eat much at the reception, and when the photos were all over we stopped and bought a bag of pistachios and snacks, and began our drive to Long Beach Island – to his mother’s beach house where we planned to live and work that summer – for our honeymoon.
I was driving my old 1969 Toyota Corona – which we had painted solid blue before the wedding – to make it not look a Grateful Dead vehicle.
I think we got to the beach house around midnight…those were the days before GPS’s…and I remember being very tired after the long day and pretty sure we made some wrong turns along the route there…
__________
We were married twenty years, and divorced in December 2005.
In 2020, my good friend Cheryl Sandstrom suddenly passed away, and I wrote some memories about her and shared among a few friends, since there was no real funeral during covid to gather and remember her with others.
The following is part of that writing:
In Celebration of Cheryl, 3/19/20
…this specific memory from mid-December 2005, my most intimate shared interaction with her, from my perspective.
We were all together – our homeschool co-op – and the kids were having their lunch. I decided I’d walk down to the mailbox and I came back with a stack of letters, and one official one from the New Castle County Courthouse which I immediately knew the contents of…
As I can see in my mind’s eye, the other ladies were by the table or in family room, maybe outside…with the kids….but Cheryl was standing by my counter, near where my coffee maker was kept. I stood next to her, opened the envelope, pulled out and read my Divorce Decree stating that I was officially divorced, and was flooded with a number of emotions.
I remember turning to Cheryl and handing her the letter to read and just standing there looking at her, fighting back tears. Maybe she first said, “Are you OK?” or maybe I was already fighting back tears, but I will always remember Cheryl and I sharing this difficult moment together. There was really not much to say, just to be there. However I recall saying then, and often later, “When you marry, all your friends and family are around you celebrating your new life and future. When you divorce, sometimes you just get a letter in the mail on some ordinary day, stating that your marriage has been legally terminated.”
I was reminded of the quotation by T.S. Eliot,
“This is the way the world ends, not with a bang,
but a whimper.”
A quotation I actually recall, among a few others,
from my first husband who was a big T.S. Eliot fan.
Thank You For Reading
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