Joe's First Wife

Joe and I just celebrated our 37th wedding anniversary!
We went to a new (to us) Italian restaurant in Knoxville for dinner, and Joe told the waiter that 37 years is the longest he’s ever been married. I thought that was pretty funny.

I love our wedding pictures. Joe looked so handsome with his long hair and thick sideburns. I never really saw his ears till we were swimming in the hotel pool on our honeymoon, but of course I'd only known him for three months! When would I have had time to look at his ears?!?

We are fortunate to even HAVE photographs from our wedding! The photographer I’d hired did not show up. Fortunately, no one told me that fact and I blissfully went through the wedding ceremony totally unaware that anything was wrong. I was so fixated on Joe at the end of the aisle that I never noticed the photographer hadn’t taken a picture of my father escorting me to my groom…a picture that was part of the package I’d ordered and placed a deposit on. But my brother Joe, who has often been my hero in different situations, had come to the rescue. When he realized my photographer wasn’t there, he quickly called a seminary student he knew (who took pictures as a hobby) and asked him to capture the wedding for us. Doug Caldwell was in the shower when Joe called, but made it to Estes Chapel in time to shoot some pictures from the balcony during the end of our ceremony. Thankfully, Doug saved the day…so to speak…and we have beautiful photos of our wedding!

What happened to the original photographer? He died the week of our wedding! His wife was so distraught that she didn’t contact any of the clients who’d hired him. Totally understandable…

In every parsonage we’ve lived in, I've had a picture on the wall of us cutting our wedding cake on May 31, 1974 in the Sherman-Thomas Student Center of Asbury Theological Seminary.

In 1980, as one of our church members, Glen, was in our home and noticed the picture…he asked who the woman was with Joe. (I was a platinum blonde at the time he saw the photo and he didn’t recognize me because by then I was wearing very short hair and a few more pounds…) I told our friend that was Joe’s first wife and she was a wonderful woman. He told me that he wasn’t aware that Joe had been married before and thought it was really nice that I displayed their wedding picture in a prominent place of our home. I told Glen that she was so wonderful that I felt it was only right to hang their picture where Joe could see it now and again.

By that time Joe came in the room and spoiled the fun.
He told our friend that was indeed his first and ONLY wife and asked if he didn’t recognize me in the picture.

Well, I thought it was funny…


Never forget…if you have a pulse, you have a purpose. Make your life count.