We honored the traditional custom of no peeking before the ceremony, and the first time I saw her in her wedding gown was on the arm of her father coming down the aisle to join me.  It was a sight I can never forget.  And how thrilled I was.  And Erral, too. 

By this time, Erral's dad was getting used to the idea his daughter was going to be married and leaving home -- but at least not with a stranger.  He even had a tinge of a smile.

After the reception at the home of Erral's parents we changed onto our travel outfits and drove off in our appropriately decorated '34 Chevy convertible. We stopped in Vancouver, where our adventure had almost started four and a half months earlier.  It marked the first leg of our life's journey together as husband and wife. It was an immense thrill to sign the motel register together as Mr. and Mrs.Glenn Plymate.  Erral was as proud as I was.

It was then that she let me in on her surprise and I got to see the inscription on the inside of my wedding band.  It was a moment of overwhelming emotion, I was so touched -- and truly realized the prophecy of those words.  We were thoroughly and indelibly committted to each other.

Our wedding dinner was at a roadside restaurant not far away and we ordered together -- fried chicken.  It was the first of many decisions we agreed to with almost no hesitation on either side.  There was never disagreement. Our tastes were mutually interdependent and each supported the other.  There was never any argument about making even the simplest little decisions to the very biggest ones.  Our thinking went hand in hand on matters of taste, be it visual or verbal.

Our honeymoon site had been selected from brochures and by recommendations from friends – Harrison Hot Springs, in British Columbia, Canada.  We chose a cottage at one of the resorts and thought it was pretty classy to have such upscale accommodations.  It was our very own cottage – our honeymoon cottage.  What we didn’t understand was that Harrison Hot Springs was a health spa, and that most of the people were elderly compared to us.  It was fun, anyway; we were looked on as a curiosity, being so young, and enjoyed a sort of celebrity status, continuing our style of being different. 

The main things to do were soaking in the hot springs pool, horseback riding, watching twice-weekly 16 mm movies, and boating.  We tried horseback riding but it didn’t take with Erral; we only did it once.  There was only so much of the pool we could take. There was such contrast between us and the other users, we didn’t spend a lot of time there.  It was better for us anyway; it was a chance for solitude and time together, just the two of us.  One day we tried boating.  Erral was always game, a good sport, and ready to try almost anything.  We rented a rowboat with a small outboard motor and set out to explore the lake.  We went way to the other side across the lake.  No problem.  Then the wind picked up and the skies darkened, signaling the approach of a storm.  We headed back to shore as fast as that little outboard would take us, into the wind and through the choppy waters.  Erral was hanging on tight, trusting me to bring her safely to shore.  I would learn it was an expression of the trust she placed in me to see her safely through threatening situations many times in the future.  Luckily, we made it; we had weathered the storm, and spent the night snuggled in our cottage thankful for our survival. 

We were anxious to start life in our own place, so cut short our stay at Harrison Hot Springs and drove to Whidbey for a look at our Navy housing.  It was a trailer, small but perfect for us for our first weeks of married life.  Coziness!  As Erral had wished for many times in her letters.

Erral tended to the household chores while I went to work in the control tower during the days.  And, so she wouldn't miss me too much, we kept a radio tuned to tower frequency so she could hear me at work.   

Soon, a small apartment became available in permanent Navy housing and it was  bye-bye trailer.  We had, for the first time, accommodations with a foundation under it.  It would last only another three months until my hitch was up and it would be time to proceed to Seattle for processing and discharge from the Navy.  Those four months on Whidbey Island together gave us many pleasant memories but now it was time to get on with the plans we had for the rest of our lives.  We wanted to go to college and had agreed the University of Oregon was what we wanted.

Erral stayed with me at a hotel in Seattle for the last few days I had to give to the Navy, while we were both itching to move on.  One of the sessions at the separation center would turn out to have a big future impact on our lives.  It was a two-hour recruiting session for the Naval Reserve.  Anyone who signed up at the beginning of the presentation would not have to sit through it.  I wanted to get back to Erral as soon as I could so put my signature on the papers and left.  It did have some good points, though; I could build credits toward retiremant, and as a family man I had to begin thinking about things like that.

From Seattle, we went to Portland to stay with my mother while we waited for the winter term of college to start.  Not long after we got there we saw an ad for a house trailer, big enough for us to live in, and something that was affordable.  The reason it was affordable was because it was not finished on the interior.  This spelled opportunity; we could finish it ourselves and have it just the way we wanted. 

We parked it in the street in front of my mother's house and proceded to finish the closets, the kitchen, and the bedroom.  We even added a stall shower, something unheard of for a trailer in 1947, because Erral wanted to be able to bathe inside her own "home."  It was state-of-the art.  Both my dad and Erral's dad helped with the finishing and by the end of December it was ready to head off for Eugene and our new life as married students.  My dad towed the trailer to Eugene for us with his Studebaker since out little Chev convertible was too small.  

Our new adventure began at the Riverbank Trailer Court about three miles east of the campus.  Winter term, January 1948 started with Erral enrolling in liberal arts and home economics courses.  She had written about wanting "to learn how to take the best care imaginable of our children if we have any" (12/15/45), and now she could do it.  My choice was the School of Architecture where expenses were the highest.  But tuition, books and supplies were paid for by the G.I. Bill and, as a married couple, we received an allowance of $90 per month.

Erral was delighted.  We now had our very own trailer and we were in college.  It was what she had dreamed about in her many letters while I was in the Navy.  Her dreams were coming true.  It was almost as if she were clairvoiant and had written a script for our future.  Her letters said she wanted "to live in a trailer near school" (10/18/45), and the trailer idea was mentioned  three more times in the next two months.  She wrote that "we should be married while I was in my navy blue sailor suit" (11/8/45), and that "when she was 18 she was going to marry me" (12/18/45).  Again, she mentioned "being married while I was in the service" (1/5/46) and asked about "fixing our trailer so that we can have a little girl's room and a collapsible bath" (3/7/46).  She was determined to have a trailer fixed with a bath, saying she "refused to use a public tub" (4/2/46), and mentioned she liked a plan for a trailer I had sent her showing a shower installed (4/13/46).   She wrote about "buying a trailer and remodeling it like we want and having it for college" (6/1/46).  The trailer was mentioned twice more in her June letters and once in July, and then she went on to other things.  One was a convertible.  She asked "someday when we are rich could we please get a convertible" (7/12/46).

It was not quite the convertible of her dreams, and we were not rich, but that wish had come true in November 1946.  It was a 1934 Chevrolet convertible -- our "little red rag top" -- that I ended up working on for about six months to have it running good and looking good for our honeymoon. 

By the start of 1948, many of her dreams had come true.  But there were still more, yet to be fulfilled .....  

Click to see how the next four years added to her adventures.