and
Patricia C. Lawrence
written by Wayne and Pat
during the last year of
Wayne's life.
Married 36 years 8 months and 2 days.
The club also had parties once a month. During the summer of 1958 on August 16 the party was held at the home of Cecil and Thelma Pugh. This couple also had two children who were handicapped, named Charles and Mary.
I had a 1955 Plymouth two door coupe. It had lots of room inside and in the trunk. On this day I came to the Pughs' home with four people who had wheelchairs and one that was slightly retarded and didn't need a wheelchair. I could put three wheelchairs in the trunk and the fourth chair was placed in the back seat between the passengers and the front seat. Those in the back seat didn't seem to care that the space was cramped as long as they got to go somewhere.
After unloading all the people and the wheelchairs, I was introduced to Cecil Pugh's sister, Minnie and two of her daughters, Patricia and Kathy. Pat was twenty years old and her sister Kathy was thirteen.
I think that Thelma Pugh had talked to Pat about me before I got there. Whatever Thelma had told Pat must have sparked an interest with Pat in me. At first meeting we hit it off very well. At first I thought that the Mahnkens were there for a visit and would be going back to Missouri. However, Pat stayed as her mother and sister returned to Missouri. Pat found a job working in a convalesent home to support herself.
Pat and her cousin Mary would show up at parties for the Outdoor Sports Club. One of the parties was a swim party. For those who couldn't swim there were inner tubes, so they could paddle around while floating.
As I was sitting on the side of the pool, Pat came by and pushed me in the pool. I quickly got out of the pool and chased her around the pool. As I chased her, she grabbed an inner tube and slipped it around her and jumped into the water. She warned me that she could not swim, so I splashed her instead of dunking her. We both had lots of fun that day.
At another party at Bobbie's home Pat met my Aunt Ethel. My mother was at this party too. My mother could see that Pat was interested in me and there were comments made about Pat being too young for me. My mother said, "Age doesn't matter at all."
Finally one day I asked Pat, "Would you like to go with me to the Los Angeles County Fair in Pomona, California."
She said, " Why don't we take Bobby and Mary with us?"
I agreed so we went to the fair the four of us. Pat pushed her cousin in her wheelchair around the fair, while I pushed Bobby in his wheelchair. We stayed away for the things which Mary and Bobby could not participate in. We spent many hours at the fair and we all were very tired when we got home. Before I left the Pugh's home, Pat asked me to call her sometime, and I said I would.
The very next day I called her, but she was not at home as she was at church. I told her aunt I would call again in the afternoon. When I called we made a date for that evening to see the movie 'No Time For Sergeants' at a drive-in theater.
When I picked her up she told me a delightful story of what her aunt had done to her before my call that afternoon. She said, "Aunt Thelma, had told me when I called that she (Pat) didn't want to see me, and not to call again." Pat related how she was disappointed with this for a few seconds until Aunt Thelma told her she had only been teasing her. Then after I called and made the date, Aunt Thelma also told Pat she was to say good morning the next morning for every time I kissed her.
At the movie we chatted for a long while and missed part of the movie, and then we started to kiss and missed more of the movie. When the movie was over we stayed for the second playing of the movie so we could tell people what it was about.
Pat told me that the next morning when she came out of her room for breakfast, that she went to her aunt and said, good morning, good morning, morning, morning, morning. I don't know how long she kept saying the good mornings but from the kissing the night before it could have been a long while.
After dating for three weeks when we returned from an evening out to dinner, I parked the car close to the Pugh's home. It was there that Pat said she had something very important to share with me. She proceeded to tell me that about nine months before she had given birth to a baby boy and had given him up for adoption. She had wanted to keep the baby, but because of the negative attitude of her family, who wanted her to have an abortion, she had chosen to have her child and give him up for adoption. She said she had to ask at nineteen what an abortion was. When she found out she refused to have an abortion. Instead she chose to go to the Salvation Army Home in St. Louis, Missouri where she went through the last 3 months of her pregnacy.
I was stunned by what she revealed to me that night an took her home immediately. This was something which I would have to think about. I thought about it all night and called her the next morning to see if I could come see her. When I arrived at her place I took her to a lovely spot in Santa Anita Canyon and found a very pretty spot to park. I told her I didn't care what had happened to her in the past, what was important to me was what she could be for me then and in my future. I came very close to asking her to marry me at that point, but decided I needed to get to know her better.
In another of the buildings there was a depiction of the Crucifixion, that covered one whole wall. The seating in this building was more like an auditorium. There was a recording with a lecture telling the story of the painting. Forest Lawn has other cemetaries in other cities in Southern California, with works of art as well, but not as well know as the Last Supper and the Crucifixion.
Almost instantly she said, "Oh, yes, of course I will marry you!"
Wow!! What a wonderful feeling that was for me.
The next day I picked Pat up and took her to Alhambra to visit a jewelry store. There she picked out a beautiful engagement and wedding ring set in white gold. On the way back to my house I stopped the car alongside the road on Longden Ave, near where I lived. I got down on one knee and placed the engagement ring on the proper finger. We then stopped at my parents home to see if my mother would approve of the rock. She was in her rock shop (she was a lapidarist) and she asked what we had been doing. We said we had been looking at rocks, and then showed her the ring. She liked the ring and welcomed Pat into the Lawrence family.
Our next stop was to the Pugh's home to show them the rock as well. Aunt Thelma approved of the ring and our engagement. At one time she had questioned my intentions when I would keep Pat out far too late. It was good that finally I could prove to her that my intentions were honorable. I was welcomed into their family, just as Pat had been welcomed into my family.
All the way up the mountain I couldn't figure out what I had done to warrant this kind of attitude. After we parked I again tried to find out what was troubling her.
She said, "I don't think you love me and with that she took the ring from her finger and threw it on the dashboard of my car. I had been jilted about five years before and this hurt me very badly, and I began to cry. She let me cry for a bit, then said she wanted to find out how angry I would get. I told her I was going to show her how angry I could get and pulled her across my knee and gave her a good spanking. Even though this experience was painful for both of us, she had learned how angry I could get. She had grown up in a very abusive home where her father was mean to her mother and the children. She just wanted to know that I would not be abusive and what was the limit I could be pushed.
Now we started to get serious about our wedding plans, the first detail was to set a date. Pat wanted to wait until my birthday which was July Fourth. I didn't want to wait that long and we discussed several more dates, finally deciding on January 25, 1959.
We began to tell people when the big day would be and talked to the Pastor of First Southern Baptist Church of Duarte, California, where Pat was attending. Pastor Malcom Long agreed to officate at a 2:00 P.M. wedding to be held at the church, with a reception to be held at the church immediately after the wedding in the church reception hall. During the planning for the wedding I began to go to church with Pat.
Pat wanted her brother Sam and Alta his wife to be in our wedding. Sam as an usher and Alta as her matron of honor. So on Thanksgiving Day 1959 we had Thanksgiving dinner with my parents and then drove to Burbank, California to fly to San Franscisco, to spend time with Sam and Alta. We spent the weekend with Sam and Alta. Pat and Alta went shopping for Pat's wedding dress. We enjoyed the time very much with Sam and his family.
When we returned home Pat got the invitations for the wedding addressed and ready to send out, and her brother Jerry arranged time off from Navy duty to act as usher at our wedding. Since Sam and Jerry were both in the Navy we asked them to wear their uniforms to the wedding. I arranged with my brother the act as my best man and with this our wedding party was set.
Another thing we did before the wedding was to purchase a house in Burbank, California which was within 5 miles of where I worked for Lockheed Aircraft. We then went to a furniture store and purchased enough furniture to start housekeeping. The furniture was to be delivered to our new home after we returned from our honeymoon and were to take possession of the house.
What we did for Christmas that year neither of us can remember. Now New Years' Eve and New Year's day was another story. We spent part of New Year's Eve with the Pughs. Then Pat and I went to a party at a neighbors house. We had a couple of drinks and then set out for Pasadena, California and the Rose Parade route where we spent the night. There were lots of people on the street staking out a spot to watch the parade. Some of them built small fires to keep warm, while others had sleeping bags and blankets to stay warm. It did get cold that night and we both stayed awake and walked a lot to stay warm. This was the first Rose Parade for Pat, but I had seen several of them before as my Aunt Ruth and Uncle Orrick lived lived on the corner where the parade ended and we would view the parade from chairs on the back of their flat bed truck. The parade was spectacular as usual. After the parade we went to my parents home to watch the Rose Bowl game. Since we were both so very tired we put pillows on the floor in front of the television and soon we were both fast asleep. My mother was sitting in the chair in the living room when we laid down and was still there when we awoke. So we slept together before we were married, but with supervision.
Finally the big day arrived for our wedding. I went to church alone and my family followed shortly. The pastor, my brother and I met in a small room behind the altar until the ceremony began. When the music began we came into the church and took our places. As we turned to face the audience, we looked out to see, Bill my brother and Alta coming down the aisle followed by my beautiful bride, escorted by her uncle, Cecil Pugh. The ceremony lasted about fifteen minutes and we then went to the reception hall for the wedding reception. We stood in the reception line for about fifteen greeting our guests and thanking them for attending our wedding.
One interesting sidelight of our wedding was that our nine most honored guests were all in wheelchairs and were on the front row of the church. We did this in honor of how we had met through the Indoor Sports Club.
After the reception line was finished we went to cut the cake. We both were in a playful mood and were not too neat about feeding cake to the other and we both had cake all over our faces. When we looked closely at the napkins we noticed that Aunt Thelma had seen to it that our names where imprinted on them. Neither of us knew this had been done so it was a very reflective time at our wedding.
After this fun time, Pat and I went to our car to go to Aunt Thelma's. The car wouldn't start. After I did and investigation under the hood I found the wire to the ignition coil was missing. We didn't know who had the wire but it showed up and we were able to take off to the Pugh's home.
When we left the church we noticed there was someone following us and we decided to try to shake whoever it was. We took the poor guy for a ride for a while and then realized it was our photographer who wanted to follow us to the Pugh's home since he didn't know the way.
Pat took the time to change her clothes and we opened some presents and then we were ready to leave on our honeymoon. The guests had decorated our car and had put rocks in the hubcaps so when we stopped and started the car there was a lot of noise. We stopped on the way to Barstow for dinner and arrived around 9 o'clock P.M. at the Hacienda Motel in Barstow for our first night. When we arrived at the motel the employees realized we were newlyweds with the noise from the rocks in the hubcaps.
The next morning after doing what newlyweds do on their wedding night, talking (ha,ha.) We had breakfast and then drove to Las Vegas, Nevada. We stayed at the El Mirage motel on the strip in Las Vegas. There was a price war on motel rooms in Las Vegas at the time and we got our room for the sum of $5.00 a night. We paid for two nights and went sightseeing on the strip and to the downtown area. We gambled very little as Pat was not yet old enough to gamble and we didn't want anything to spoil our honeymoon.
On Wednesday morning we went to Lake Mead and got a room at the Lake Mead Lodge. We then went to Boulder Dam (Hoover Dam now) and took the tour through the dam site. We found the tour to be very interesting and were rather awed by the structure.
Another day we took a small motor boat out on the lake and through the canyon to another part of the lake. The water was very clear and we could see giant boulders several feet under water, but there was no danger of us hitting them. When through the canyon the other part of the lake had a breathtaking view. We brought the boat to the edge of the lake and onto a sand bar and got off the boat to rest our legs and to take a pit stop. At this point we had to use our other tank of gas and so we headed back to the lodge side of the lake.
When we arrived back in the Southern California area we rented a motel room for several weeks while we awaited the move into our home. When we finally got to move into our home we had our funiture delivered and got our wedding gifts which had been in safe keeping at the Pugh's home.
This is by no means the story of our life together it is only a thumbnail sketch of our love and the first few months together.
