I am not doing things in order on my blog. I'm just trying to put in a little history for my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. This picture is the only one I have of DaveOtte when we were married. I am sure the girls probably have other pictures. My parents were very upset that I wanted to get married. They did everything they could think of to try to change my mind. I was 18 when your dad started courting me. I was 19 when we did get married. I promised my parents we would go together for a year before we got married. I am sure they figured I would change my mind. It wasn't that they had anything against your dad. I was the oldest and they didn't want to lose me, I guess. (When my sister got married, they never fussed about it) Looking back now, I don't know why your dad agreed to courting me that long. I also had to agree to have my sister, Elsie, chaperone us on every date. At that time, your dad was living in Wenatchee with friends. (They were a nice married couple) Your dad could only come to Everett on weekends and he came every weekend on the bus. He had used his GI loan to start a radio repair business in Wenatchee. He let my parents know that he was a business man and was planning to buy a house outside of Wenatchee. (His business was already in the red but I didn't know that until after we were married) anyway, every weekend we would go to a show and dinner with my sister tagging along. Your dad did not have good feelings about Elsie until after we had been married for sometime. One weekend your dad wanted me to come to Wenatchee for the weekend. He went to great lengths to tell my parents that he slept in the basement and that his friends had a nice room for me upstairs. I was planning on taking the train over. My parents told him that would be fine. After your dad left Sunday night, my mother said "now you realize you will have to take Elsie" Elsie was really excited about the trip. Your dad always called me a couple of times during the week and I did not have the heart to tell him I was bringing Elsie. I will never forget when we got off the train. It was the first time I realized what a temper your dad had. He was sitting in a car, waiting for me to get off and he saw Elsie. I saw him just sitting there pounding on the steering wheel. He fumed about it quietly the rest of the day but he was polite. It was a very nice couple he stayed with. They had a very nice house and were very hospitable. When it was getting close to bedtime, I told Elsie I wanted to sit on back swing and talk to Dave for awhile. She said you be back in the bedroom by 10:00 or I am going to tell Mama. I said OK. I noticed there was no clock in the bedroom and Elsie didn't have a watch. Elsie and I were both used to going to bed early all our lives so I knew she would go to sleep pretty quick. It was summer and a nice warm night. We sat in the swing and talked till about midnight. Yes, we just talked. With my parents hovering over me, he was walking on egg shells as it was. It was nice to have a little time just for us. I remember that evening because it was so nice. I set my watch back to 10:00. Elsie woke up when I came back in and said "what time is it?" I showed her my watch and said it was 10:00. I wasn't until years later I told I had set my watch back. She said she had been sure I had been up later but she couldn't prove it. Anyway, we finally did get married on December 28, 1946. Your dad's sister Oranell and her husband, Loyd came and a few of my friends from work. My parents did not come. My mother was so upset she laid in bed all day crying. My dad could hardly keep from crying. He shook your dad's hand and told him to take good care of me. We were married in a Presbyterian Church in Everett. After the wedding, Oranell had a reception for us in their tiny basement apt. on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle. That is where this picture was taken. We had a Honeymoon in Portland, Oregon. We stayed at the Multnomah Hotel for a week. We did fly to Portland and back. Your dad must have spent almost every cent he had. We took the bus back to Wenatchee. We stayed the first night in the Wenatchee Hotel. I woke up the first morning and the bottom of the washbasin was crawling. It was cockroaches and I had never seen a cockroach. I started screaming. When your dad came in they had all disappeared in the light. He explained what they were . I would not spend another night there. While he was at work, I found a cabin close to town. It only had an electric oven for heat. We found out the mattress was wet but we slept the best we could. When your dad was getting ready for work he told me to be careful because there was a black widow spider in the bathroom. I quickly dressed and walked about 4 blocks to a gas station to go to the bathroom. I went house hunting and finally found a duplex for rent. The owner was very proud of her laundry room in the basement. It had two sink tubs and a wringer washer, clothes lines inside and outside. I forgot to mention that finally your dad's business went belly up and so he went to work doing radio repair for a furniture store in Moses Lake and rode to work with one of the employees. We lived in the duplex about two months and then your dad got a job at the Pot Holes Dam. We lived in the housing project that had been built for Army Personel and their families during the war. We were right on the lake. I really loved it there. We had a nice coal heater and a kerosene cook stove. We had the same man for milk delivery and ice delivery. We didn't have a refrigerator just an icebox. I had a wringer washer and dried clothes on a rack in the winter and we had clotheslines outside. I had made myself a two piece bathing suit and spent a lot of hours lying down by the lake. We didn't have mail delivery so I had to walk uptown for the mail. We had wooden sidewalks and the town was very small. There was a nice Deli that we bought the best Saurkraut and potato salad. There was an ice plant near town where you could get ice. Especially on hot days your block of ice for the icebox would be out before the iceman got back. He delivered milk three times a week and ice three times a week. He got to be a good friend of ours. He worked hard 6 days a week.