Gladys Picola (Garrett) Spencer (1912 - 1986)

This takes place in May 1937, during the Great Depression. It was common for students to finish the first two years of college, then start teaching during the regular school year, and finishing their college degrees by going to summer school every year until they completed all the classes. Daddy told me about this in the last year or two of his life. We just never thought to talk about it before that.

How Mother and Daddy got married.

Daddy was teaching at Independence, Oklahoma, and Mother was teaching at Bulo, Oklahoma, a three teacher school in the sand hills near Erick, Oklahoma, in May 1937. Mother spent the weekends with her family in Erick. Daddy went to Erick to visit Mother on a Saturday. He took her for a drive, and eventually told her that he didn’t have money for a hotel, so why not get married? Mother said, “I thought you’d never ask!” or something close to that. They drove over to Sayre, Oklahoma, to get a marriage license, then returned to Erick and made an appointment with the preacher for later that evening.

They returned to Papa and Mama Garrett’s home and had supper. After supper, Daddy heard Mama ask Mother what they were going to do that evening. Mother said, “We’re going to get married.” Daddy finally got up nerve enough to go to the door of the kitchen and say something about not having asked her parents’ permission. Apparently Papa and Mama were totally surprised, and Papa said something about “not much we can do about it now”. Mother and Daddy invited the family to go with them to the preacher’s home for the marriage ceremony. Papa, Mama, Helen Fayne, and Bernie went with them, and Mother and Daddy were married.

The next day, Daddy took Mother back to Bulo, then went back to Independence. Daddy didn’t tell his fellow teachers about his marriage. He thought they would tease him a lot, or play pranks on him if he did. He stopped going with them to social events and spent more time working on his correspondence courses. He wanted very much to graduate from the college by the end of the summer term in 1938. When school was out for the summer, around the first of June, they could then live together for the summer while both continued their college education. In the fall they both had to return to their teaching jobs. Mother had a year remaining on her contract at Bulo. Daddy returned to Independence to resume teaching there.

They both returned to school in Weatherford when their teaching jobs were completed the following June. They both graduated from Southwestern, at the end of the summer term in 1938. Grandmother Spencer came on the train for the graduation. That was the first time Mother had met her. She stayed in their room with them, sharing a bed with Mother, and Daddy slept on the couch. I, Sandra, was born October 15, 1938.

Another note: Mother checked the role in a class that both Daddy and Mother were taking. This is where they met. Daddy used to tease Mother by asking her if she would mark him present even if he were absent. She would say, “You wouldn’t ask me to do that, would you?”^[1]