When my mom turned 50, we held a surprise birthday party for her. I invited all of her siblings and her known friends. We held it at our house. We had it as a potluck BBQ in our backyard. All we told her was that we were having a family BBQ at our place. Our son was just a few months old. Most people who arrived early parked their vehicles in the back so they wouldn’t be recognized. It was a good surprise. Everybody had a good time.
All my life I was told
(and we celebrated) my maternal grandparents wedding anniversary in
November. We were told that they were
married on the 23rd of Nov in 1932 in Chehalis, Lewis Co,
Washington. Mom said it was an
elopement; that an uncle took them somewhere and brought them back later. I have no idea as to who that uncle was. During our family research trips to the
Lewis County courthouse in Chehalis, I looked at the marriage records. Nothing.
Then I went to the State Archives in Olympia. Talked to the archivist and we looked at
records from surrounding counties.
Nothing. I even went to Pacific
County Courthouse and searched through their records. Nothing.
So, when I was working on my application into the Daughters of the
American Colonists, I continued looking, this time searching in Oregon. Still nothing. I remembered seeing a marriage certificate on
the wall of their house in Oregon when I was growing up but then remembered
that they had lost a few things due to a house fire. So, I ended up using the 1940 Federal Census
that showed them as husband/wife with my mom listed as one of the children. Then about five months later, mom gave me a
packet of information that the sisters thought I should have since I was the
family historian. As I went through it,
I found a marriage certificate for my grandparents. The surprise?
It was from 1970! They were married in Coeur d’Alene, Kootenai Co, Idaho
at the age of 56. The only thing we
could think of is that they couldn’t find the original records (or they were
never officially married and thought they were by common law) and that they
needed documents for some purpose. In
1970, they were living in Albany, Linn Co, Oregon. Also in that packet was a letter from the
Census Bureau dated May 1974, a delayed birth certificate of my grandfather
dated in December 1963, a certified copy of my grandmother’s birth certificate
dated August 1974, a letter dated in December (but no year) indicating that my
grandfather attended school in Glenoma, Lewis Co, WA specifying his birthdate;
and paperwork showing he initially applied for a delayed birth certificate in
1960. I think a lot of this was so he
could get a social security number to work for the City of Albany then to file
for social security benefits when it came time to retire.
