This commentary was written after I told my mother about doing the conversion of the clipping
of the wedding of Roberta and Elmer Doak in August 1946. She told me this story and I asked
her to write something about it for the "Stories" section of the scrapbook.
- Jeff Allen
After the wedding, as was the custom then, some of the boys would kidnap either the bride or groom and "take them for a ride." Dad [Job Churchill] was the Chief of Police in town and had attended the wedding. He overheard a conversation that some of the other guests were out to "get" the groom. So, while everyone was waiting out in front of the house for the bride and groom to come out, he went in to "arrest" them temporarily. He came out the front door with the bride and groom by the arm and escorted them to the bride's father's car and the couple drove off.
All at once, the bride's brother realized what had happened and he and his wife took off to catch up with the newlyweds.
In the meantime, something had happened to the car the bride and groom had taken, and they had to stop beside the road. The brother caught up with them and helped the groom fix the car. While they were working on the car, the bride climbed into her brother's car with her sister-in-law to wait.
Soon the car was fixed and the bride and groom went off on their way to Canada for their honeymoon. It then dawned on Roberta's brother and his wife that they missed the perfect opportunity for the "ride" since the bride was in their car, and the groom was up to his elbows in the broken car.
Read the wedding clipping from the newspaper