NEVER LEGALLY MARRIED?!

Several weeks ago, I contacted the benefits office at one of Rick's former employers to inform them of his death and to inquire about my eligible benefits.  The following week I received a nice packet from them outlining what I would receive.  I was a bit distressed to learn that I was eligible for only HALF of his monthly amount but I was also due a small cash settlement.  They requested that I send a copy of his death certificate and a copy of our marriage certificate to prove that we were truly married.  That seemed reasonable enough.

When Hurricane Ike deposited the huge oak tree on our house in 2008 causing over $88,000 of damage, we chose not to move out of the house during the repairs.  Our insurance was willing to pay for an apartment but there were none available for miles. We have two attics and both required repairs.  Everything in both attics was shifted from attic to attic while they made the repairs.  When they moved on to repairing the rooms upstairs, they moved the furniture from the bedrooms and loft into the attics.  Everything in both attics is in a jumble and not necessarily in the attic that it was originally in.  The death certificate I had, but the search was on for the marriage certificate.  I made foray after foray into the hot attics searching for the envelope that contains the pretty marriage certificate given to us by the minister with absolutely no luck.



I called the company and asked if a certified copy of our marriage license would suffice.  They said that would be even better.  We got married in McKinney, Collin County, Texas at 12 noon on March 23, 1963.  I looked up the Collin County Clerk online, printed and completed the form and sent it off with a money order requesting two copies of our marriage license.  A few days later, I received a call from the Collin County Clerk, saying that she had researched every record back to 1890 and no one by the name of Ulrickson had ever been married in Collin County.  She asked if I were sure we were married in Collin County.  Like I would forget where and when I was married.  Then she ask if the marriage could have been recorded in some other county.  I told her that we were living in Dallas County when we got married.  She recommended that I check with them because it could have been recorded there.  Dallas County has no record of our marriage.  The search expanded.  There is no record of our marriage in the State of Texas or for that matter anywhere in the United States.

I had a brainchild.  Call the church where we got married.  We chose to be married in the chapel of the First Methodist Church in McKinney because that was where the minister I had in high school and college was serving at the time.  I didn't want anybody but Rev. Ed T. Hayes to perform my ceremony.  Neither Rick nor I were ever a member of that church.  I spoke to the church secretary explaining my plight.  She was very sympathetic and said she would search and call me back in a few days.  She left a message on my machine three days later. The church didn't keep records of non-members who were married there.  She was so sorry but she couldn't help.

I mulled this over for a few days and finally called the company to tell them of my problem.  The nice benefits man is going to check with the legal department to see if there is anything they can accept in lieu of a marriage certificate. He will call me back.  No call yet.

So I guess that as far as the law is concerned, Rick and I were never legally married.  I told this to Karen, my friend and probate attorney, before our Sunday School class began last Sunday.  Amy is in the same Sunday School class.  Just as the teacher asked the class to quiet down so that we could begin, Amy said to Karen rather loudly, "I'm just a love child of the sixties."  You can imagine how that got everyone's attention.  When Chris told his wife, Julie, about it, she looked at him and said very seriously, "You're illegitimate," before she started laughing.  Everyone I tell the story laughs as do I, BUT...Not married, huh?  Boy were we ever married.  This begs the telling of our wedding story.

Rick and I lived in the same apartment house.  That's how we met.  I lived upstairs in a three bedroom apartment with two roommates and he lived alone downstairs in a one-room efficiency.  We got engaged on Valentine's Day 1963.  Because Daddy had died so recently and Mother said she couldn't understand how I could marry a "complete stranger," (Mother had picked out someone else for me to marry and she had only met Rick a few times.) we decided to have a small, private ceremony at the church in McKinney.  Without asking, Mother sold my Selmer saxophone for $40.00 (It would be worth thousands now.) and bought white silk to have a wedding suit made.  Rick and I got our blood tests and took off early one Friday to get to the court house in McKinney before it closed to get our marriage license.  I had a sore throat and began feeling really bad on the way home and within hours realized that I had the flu.  I missed work the next week.  Because of that we postponed the wedding for a week.  We scheduled it for 7:00 p.m. on Friday, March 22.  Penny, one of my roommates, and a colleague of Rick's from work were going to be our witnesses.  We planned to spend the weekend in the Adolphus Hotel and go back to work on Monday morning.


On Sunday before the scheduled date, Rick just had to tell someone that he was getting married.  He called his oldest sister, Edith, telling her not to tell anyone.  On Monday evening, Edith called asking if we could postpone the wedding until Saturday.  She had called the whole family in Kansas and they all wanted to come.  On Tuesday morning, I called Rev. Hayes, and he said that he could perform the ceremony on Saturday.  Wow, suddenly we were having a wedding in four days and the groom's family was coming but not one member of the bride's family even knew about it.  


To say I panicked would be an understatement. I went upstairs from Rick's apartment to talk to my two roommates, Penny and Kathy.  Rick's next-door neighbor, Lou was there also.  Kathy and Lou had both been married but were divorced.  They said not to worry that we could put something together.  My first order of business was to call Mother to tell her.  She called family in Oklahoma City while I phoned my older brother, Donald in Houston to see if he could come and give me away. Howard, my other brother, and his wife had just had a baby on March 2, so I knew their making the trip from Houston would be out of the question, but I called him anyway. Mother also called some of my friends from high school to invite them..  

The roommates and Lou decided that we should have a reception in the apartment house club room following the wedding.  We invited some friends and work colleagues to come to that.  On Wednesday afternoon, Kathy ordered a wedding cake and rented dishes, etc., to use at the reception.  I shouldn't worry.  She was going to take care of the whole reception.  I made an appointment to have my hair done and portraits made on Friday afternoon and ordered flowers. About midnight Wednesday, Kathy got a call that her grandmother had died in Buffalo, NY.  Kathy flew to Buffalo on Thursday morning. Oops!


Meanwhile, back at the apartment, Rick came home sick on Wednesday afternoon.  He was running a high, high fever but had no other symptoms.  Should we cancel?  Could we cancel now that all these people were coming?  Canceling didn't seem to be an option.  He went to bed while I went out to buy some stuff for the reception and to try to find some sort of semblance of a veil to wear.

Rick was so sick Thursday that he didn't go to work.  When I got home from work, his fever was over 104.  Off to the doctor we went.  The doctor said he could tell that he was sick, but he didn't know what was wrong with him. I don't recall his even giving him any medicine.  He just told him to take aspirin to keep the fever down.  Rick's sister, Marilyn, who lived in Mesquite called to say that she was doing a dinner after the wedding for all the families in attendance. We told her about the reception at the apartment house.  She said that we could do the dinner after the reception. While he had her on the phone, Rick asked if her husband, Jerry, would be his best man.  About all I can remember about that evening is that I was horribly busy rushing around attending to all the details.

Rick was still sick on Friday.  I left work as soon as my first-graders went home.  Rick's family arrived from Kansas about the same time that I arrived at his apartment.  His parents, and his sisters Rose Mary and Joyce and their families came.  Guess who didn't come after all:  His sister Edith who was the one who started the whole thing.  I was a little miffed about that, but the race was on for me.

First I went to get my hair done.  Then I raced home, put on my wedding suit and headed to the photographer.  I changed out of the wedding attire and picked up the dishes, etc. for the reception, dropping them off at the clubhouse.  Then I stopped in to check on Rick.  All his family had gone to his sister's house in Mesquite.  It was now about 8:00 p.m.  Rick's phone rang and it was my roommate saying that my brother, Donald, his wife, B, and my 13-year-old  niece, Donna, had arrived from Houston and were waiting for me in my apartment.  I was putting Donald and B up in Kathy's now vacant bedroom and Donna was going to sleep with me.

Donald and B hadn't eaten dinner and wanted me to go to a restaurant with them.  In spite of being sick, Rick decided to go, too, as he had never met them.  I should tell you that Donald and B were truly unique individuals who marched to their own drummer.  I hadn't adequately prepared Rick.  The doctor had told B to quit smoking cigarettes.  She complied by smoking a pipe.  It wasn't just any pipe, it was either a huge man's Sherlock Holmes pipe or a corncob pipe.  I was used to it and so hadn't thought to tell Rick.  I'll never forget the look on his face when she fired up the pipe after her meal in the restaurant.  We finally all got to bed about midnight, but I didn't go to sleep.  I was only seven years older than Donna and we had always been close.  Donna cried half the night because this would be the last time we would ever sleep together.  (She was right. We haven't shared a bed since.)

Rick still had a fever on Saturday.  I was up early in the morning.  I stopped by the beauty shop for a touch-up of my hair, picked up my bouquet and the flowers for the wedding party, then the cake and other food for the reception at the club house.  Lou had agreed to stay home from the wedding to set up the reception with the help of the apartment manager. By then it was time to get dressed and make the 30 mile trip to McKinney.


Well, everyone showed up at the church on time.  My cousins from Oklahoma, friends from school and Mother arrived from Gainesville.  Rick's family arrived from Mesquite, and a few friends from work were there, too.  The minister met with Rick and me privately in his study, then we had the ceremony.  Rick's brother-in-law, Jerry, served as best man and Penny, my roommate, was my maid of honor.  Donald gave me away.  Everything went fairly smoothly except Donald laughed out loud when Rick began his vows because he wasn't aware that Rick's real name was Oliver and he thought the minister was marrying me to someone else.


When the ceremony was over, we all headed to the apartment house and the reception was quite nice.  Except Rick still had a high fever.  Good friends and our two families were becoming acquainted.  When it was over, Penny and Lou said for me not to worry about cleaning the club house.  They would take care of it.

It was off to Marilyn's house in Mesquite.  She had put together a very nice meal and we all had a good time.  Except Rick still had a high fever.  On the way from the apartment house, Donald had sneaked Rick and me bourbon and cokes that he had mixed in coke cans so Mother wouldn't know.  I think that perked Rick up some.  Finally, it was time to go back to the apartment house.  Rick had canceled our reservation at the hotel since he felt so bad.


All my family went back to the apartment with us. The women and children went upstairs to my apartment and Rick, Donald and my cousin, Virgil, went to Rick's apartment.  I also didn't think to tell Rick that Virgil had a problem with alcohol. Donald knew, but he didn't tell Rick either.  Rick offered Donald and Virgil a drink. Donald and Rick had a Scotch and water and Virgil indicated that he would have gin.  Rick began pouring straight gin into an eight ounce glass telling Virgil to "Say when."  Virgil "said when" when the glass was full.  They sat on the day beds that doubled as couches and began sipping their drinks.

The women decided that since so many people were there, it would be a good time to move all my things down to Rick's apartment.  I went to Rick's apartment to tell him that we were going to start moving my clothes and discovered that Lou had moved all the dirty dishes from the reception from the clubhouse to Rick's sink.  They were piled randomly in the sink and all over the counter in Rick's little kitchen.  I wasn't happy.


About that time, I realized that Rick had given Virgil alcohol.  Virgil had finished about half the glass.  I guess he realized that he had had more than enough as Rick and I watched him pour the remainder of the gin into Rick's new shoes that he had bought for the wedding.  Then my things started arriving.  The clothes from my closet were brought down on hangers and piled on the floor.  The contents of the dresser drawers were dumped on the floor and the empty drawers were returned to the upstairs apartment. 

Donald, B, and Donna were going to spend Saturday night in Gainesville with the rest of my family at Mother's house.  Once they got the clothes moved, they decided that it was time to head north.  So there Rick and I were.  A newly married couple.  But Rick still had a high fever.  I looked around at the mess and decided that I must do the dishes from the reception. There was no dishwasher in the apartment so I had to do them by hand.  We both changed clothes and Rick decided to lie down for awhile.


By the time I finished the dishes, Rick was sound asleep.  I decided to deal with some of the clothes.  By 10:30, I was exhausted.  Now I spent more on a gown and peignior set to wear on my wedding night than I spent on my wedding suit.  I paid over $60 for it at Neiman Marcus.  It was beautiful with sheer puffy sleeves, lots of lace and satin ribbons.  I went into the bathroom, freshened up and put it on.  I made my entrance, calling Rick's name.  He just moaned in his sleep and rolled over.  I sat on the vacant daybed for awhile feeling very sorry for myself and wondering what to do.  I decided I should let him sleep but I'll be damned if I was going to waste that expensive gown and peignior set.  I took it off, put on my outing granny gown and crawled into the daybed by myself.  I really wished I was in Gainesville with all my family having a good time.


So now you know the story of our wedding. We were together for 47 years.  We have two children and five grandchildren.  We owned four houses together. You tell me.  Were we married or not?

September 27, 2009