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Irene Whitfield & Jack Chisholm's wedding & honeymoon |
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Jack Chisholm & Irene Whitfield were married on May 26, 1931 in the livingroom of his parent's log cabin on their farm at Hillacres, Fall City, Washington.
Irene told me that his proposal was a breathless, "Do you think we'll ever understand each other?" When she said, "Maybe. I think so." she found herself engaged.
Her wedding ring was imprinted with daisies. Eventually the daisies wore off. The ring as it is now, after 50 years of wear, is a plain ring, a bit bent where it conformed to fit her finger.
They were almost late to their own wedding because they had to go fetch her father from where he lived on the Olympic Penninsula and nearly missed the ferry on the way back.
The one wedding gift I know about was her big bread bowl that she made home made brown bread in at least once every week for around 30 years of my life. I still have the bowl. It has a little crack inside, which means I don't use it for bread anymore. It sits in a place of honor up on a top shelf. I don't remember if she ever said who gave it to her. In those days, there were few presents, but they were always something needed, useful and prized.
NOTE: "brown bread" is now what they call "wheat bread". It was called brown bread to distinguish it from white bread, which was made from bleached flour. Aunt Eve made white bread. "Bakery bread" or "bakers bread" was the kind you got from the store and was considered inferior to either of the other kinds.
She said she had the pre-wedding jitters and was left to stand alone in a little hallway and actually tried to see if she could get the window open to escape, but it was locked.
Her wedding dress was a simple pale dress that had little pink and blue flowers on it. She was quite appalled when her new family thought it inappropriate that she should wear the dress again. She thought it very, very wasteful that a dress would be worn only once.
Irene partly rewrote her vows, in defiance of the customs of the day. She informed the minister that she wasn't going to vow to "obey". Apparently there was a bit of an argument over this, but she had her way.
For those who don't know: "aka" means "also known as".
There is a tiny little hardbound book with a white cover and gold imprinting that says "Our Wedding" on it. The list of guests and the registration of marriage are both in that book along with a number of other pages that weren't used.
The photos show them on the coast for their honeymoon. I also know they went to The Dalles in Oregon. (I think it's been renamed Dallesport to lessen the confusion with The Dalles, Washington, which is right across the Columbia River from it.) Laurence Moore lived there and had an airplane at the airport. As a wedding present, he took Jack and Irene up on a flight. Irene told me that Jack was leaning over the edge taking pictures and that she was hanging on for dear life. This was typical of both of them.
I asked her about why she was standing on the bumper of the car and she said, rather primly, "People do lots of silly things on their honeymoon."
Photographers: Jack Chisholm (Irene in wedding dress, honeymoon), Irene Chisholm (honeymoon picture of Jack), JJ Chisholm (Jack & Irene in wedding clothes, Rowan Chisholm (bread bowl).
Author/artist/designer/programmer of page: Rowan Ainslie Chisholm
This website and all contents copyright 2009 Penelope Chisholm aka Rowan Ainslie Chisholm
This page first posted 28 August 2008
Latest revision: 23 January 2011
