The memories live on
Two years ago I wrote this piece about my parents’ wedding, and as we spend this weekend celebrating what would have been their 57th anniversary — our first without the leading man that we all loved so dearly — I can’t think of anything better I could say than to reshare the story of their romance.
The wonderful thing about memories is that, even after we are gone, they live on as a comfort to those who shared them with us.
Fifty-seven years ago, Cecil T. Sheppard wed Carol Royston on Aug. 6 at Woodlawn Baptist Church on Columbia Drive in Decatur.
The evening wedding was followed by a reception in the church’s fellowship hall, where their closest family and friends enjoyed light refreshments, lime sherbet punch, wedding cake, and butter mints in green and yellow to match the bridesmaid dresses, and pale coral for a punch of color.
The bridesmaids included Charlotte Sauls and Kathy Garrett, with the bride’s sister, Regina Royston, serving as the maid of honor. Standing up for the groom were Lamar Sheppard, Stiles “Razorback” Richardson, with Eddie Wilkes acting as best man.
The couple met in a Punched Card Equipment class at Dekalb Area Technical School in Clarkston, where the two were at the top of the class. Cecil claims that Carol liked to copy off of his paper, but those close to the couple confirm that she was smarter than that. They still debate who finished at the top of their class, so they agree to disagree for the sake of the marriage.
Their first date was a March outing to see Buck Owens at the Lakewood Fairgrounds.
“He asked me if I liked Buck Owens, and I said yes,” Carol recalls. “He got tickets for us to go with his friend Bob and his date.”
Their second date included the best ribs Carol had ever had, picked up from a downtown Atlanta establishment and carried back to Bob’s house.
It wasn’t actually love at first sight for Carol, but once she agreed to go out with him, Carol remembers that they just knew they were going to get married.
“I didn’t think that I’d want to date your dad at first, I thought he was just an older guy in the class,” she admits. “He was late to class every night.”
“I was working at the airport and had to drive home and get cleaned up before the 6 o’clock class,” Cecil explains. “It was hard to get there on time.”
Cecil popped the question in July and asked Carol if she’d rather have an engagement ring or a house. She picked a house.
He had first asked her father for her hand and he said, “Yeah, that’s all right, we didn’t think she was ever going to get married because she’s so old.” She was a 22-year-old spinster at the time.
“After I met his mother for the first time, she told him she thought I was nice enough but she didn’t think he’d marry someone like me,” Carol recalls.
The two happily wed, in spite of the family reservations, and, following a short honeymoon to North Georgia and South Carolina, they settled into their new home, a two bedroom, one bath brick ranch at 3204 Westmart Lane in Tucker, Georgia.
In January, a year and a half later, the couple welcomed a daughter, Monica Gail, to their family, on Carol’s birthday. Four years after that, in April, they added Jennifer Leigh, converting the small den off the kitchen into a third bedroom.
As the girls grew, the couple attended many basketball games, gymnastics meets, dance recitals and choral performances.
In their spare time they enjoyed drives in the country with family and tending to Cecil’s bees in various locations around North Georgia. Thanks to Cecil’s career with Delta Airlines, the family traveled often, including weekend trips all over the United States, with their longest family trip taking them to Germany to visit Cecil’s Army base in Bad Tölz.
After their daughters graduated from college, the couple retired to Carol’s childhood region in Southwest Virginia where they lived until Cecil’s death in September of last year.
Two years ago, when asked what his favorite part of 55 years of marriage has been, Cecil said, “55 years.” He knew pretty quickly after meeting Carol that she was the woman for him and he’s been happy about that choice ever since.
When asked the same question, Carol says, “The companionship and, now, the way he takes care of me when I can’t do things for myself.”
“Well, you would have done it for me,” Cecil responds. “Yeah, but I’m a woman, and we are just geared that way, it has been harder for you.”
I share this sweet story with you because it makes me happy to remember simpler times and recall the loving home in which we were raised.
That house that Dad bought for Mom in 1965 cost $15,600, comparable to roughly $128,000 today. When he bought the house he was living with his mother to help her out after his father’s death, in a three room house with no running water.
What a step up that little house was! Anniversaries are a time of remembrance, an opportunity to reflect and consider how things have changed, or how they might have been different.
“We’ve had a lot of good days together and raised two wonderful daughters, and a granddaughter that is beyond measure,” the two concluded when asked two years ago.
I don’t know about you, but a good old-fashioned love story feels pretty good to consider in these complicated times, even if the story is bittersweet since losing Dad, Mom’s forever prince charming.
It’s simple, but does it really get any better than that?