Since Valentine's Day is just around the corner, today I will tell the story of the romance that started the family of L.D. and Inez Wood. I would say this could be called a great romance since they were married for sixty six and a half years.
It all started when L.D. and Harrel Wood moved from Carlisle to Woodrow, Texas or from northwest Lubbock County to southern Lubbock County. Due to family circumstances beyond their control (another story to be told later), their farm in Carlisle had been sold and L.D. became an independent sharecropper at the age of 17 in 1931. (For those of you who may not know, a sharecropper is a farmer who rents a farm and pays the rent on the farm by giving a certain percentage of their crop to the landlord.) L.D. began sharecropping in the Woodrow area and continued to farm this way for more than 30 years. He never owned a farm of his own, but always rented. When L.D. and Harrel moved to the Woodrow area, they rented a farm about a mile south of the Gill farm. Mamie Gill decided it would be neighborly for her two eldest daughters, Mary and Inez, to take some cookies over to the Woods and welcome them to the community. Mary was 17 and Inez was 15. Inez had just broken off her engagement to a young man because he was caught in the cotton patch with another girl. He and the girl were
not picking cotton so Inez broke up with him in a quick fiery manner, as only she could!
Mary and Inez dressed up in their Sunday best and walked over to the Wood farm carrying their cookies and their welcome. Mother (Inez) told the story as follows for the rest of her life. "Mary and I walked up to the house and Dee (L.D.) and Harrel were on the porch. Dee was playing a jews harp and acting the fool and Harrel was standing in the doorway. Dee didn't see us until we stepped up on the porch. He stopped playing and I could tell he was embarrassed because he turned deep red. Mary and I introduced ourselves and handed Harrel the cookies. Dee was the most handsome man I'd ever met! He had dark hair and the bluest eyes that just twinkled all over at me. I got really shy and couldn't say anything! Mary had to do all the talking, which was quite unusual. I was usually the talker and Mary was the quiet one. Dee wasn't really my type. I usually preferred blonde haired, dark eyed men, but that day I changed my type! He didn't really say much either that day. He just looked at me while Harrel and Mary talked. We didn't stay long and all the way home I talked about Dee. Mary finally got tired of me going on and on and said, "Inez,you think all boys are handsome! Just hush! I'm tired of listening to you!" I hushed, but knew I was already half in love with L.D. Wood.
Inez Gill, Age 15
The next time I saw Dee was at a basketball game. I was on the Woodrow girl's team, although I really wasn't a very good player. I was too short and was always getting caught traveling. I was playing one night and looked up in the stands and there was Dee watching me. When I saw him, he grinned and winked at me. I was completely flustered then and played even worse, thinking he was watching me. When the game was over, I went over and talked to him. I was so self-conscious. I was all hot and sweaty, still dressed in my tacky basketball outfit while he was all dolled up in a suit. Dee always dressed nice out in public. He always wore a suit and tie, wearing a hat. He never had a hair out of place. After that we started seeing each other at dances and would always talk and dance together. Dee was a good dancer. There wasn't a lot to do in the country so people would have parties and dances at their houses on Saturday nights for young people. There would be drinking too. Dee drank some, but never too much. I didn't drink much, if any, because Mother always said ladies shouldn't drink alcohol. Women act stupid when they drink, especially if they get drunk. A drunk woman just embarrasses herself, whether she realizes it or not. Anyway, me and my best friend,Berniece Merrill, always went to the dances together. Berniece would always drink a lot and I would get so disgusted with her, especially when she got sick and threw up all over the place. Berniece liked Dee too, but he was never interested in her like that.
When I really knew I was in love with Dee was when we were picking cotton together one day. We had a contest to see who could pick more cotton down a row the fastest and I beat him! We then kept picking cotton and talking. It got dark and it was cold. Everyone else quit for the day, but we stayed out in that field for hours talking. I told him I was nearly 17, but really I had just turned 16. He was 19 and I didn't want him to think I was too young.
Inez is in the hat about mid picture, L.D. behind her to the right.
We started going steady after that. He would come over every Saturday night and we'd go to dances or sometimes a movie in town. Sometimes we stayed home and played games wtih my family. When Dee asked me to marry him, I was so excited! Back then everyone went to Clovis (N.M.) to get married because there was no waiting period and no blood tests. It was a hundred miles away, but in a good car you could make it in a day. When we went to get married, Harrel and Pauline (Harrel's wife) went with us to stand up with us. I had a pretty new red suit and Dee was dressed up in a new suit. A Baptist preacher married us and that was that! I was thrilled! I married the handsomest, smartest, best man in the country and was so in love."
Marriage Certificate The Newlyweds, June 1934
Daddy and Mother were married on June 6, 1934. They lived together for sixty six and a half years and only slept apart if one of them was in the hospital or very ill. They married in the middle of the Great Depression and in the midst of the Dust Bowl. Added to those rough circumstances, they lost their first baby in their first year of marriage. The loss of that first baby haunted them the rest of their lives. Then in 1937 came the arrival of Betty Jean, followed by John D. in 1940, Joe Leslie in 1943, Judy Anne in 1947 and, lastly, Doris Elaine (me) in 1961. Their marriage was not without its tempetuous times. Mother was spirited, jealous, and high tempered. Daddy was quiet with a longer temper that revealed itself in days long pouts of silence. Yet, their marriage worked, survived and grew stronger through the years.
When Mother became ill, starting in 1986, Daddy surprised me by not only taking over the primary housekeeping and cooking, but excelling at it. He even learned how to can and freeze the produce from their backyard garden. As Mother weakened and declined, Daddy revealed how very much he loved her by caring for her persistently and well. He never let up or quit, even as he grew exhausted and frustrated. Truth be told, he seemed to resent any help offered and only accepted help when it was absolutely necessary.
After Mother passed away in 2001, I was blessed with the opportunity to spend more time with Daddy and develop a deeper relationship with him. We had long talks when I would ask him for his side of the stories that Mother had told me all my life. One day we were talking about Mother and I asked him to tell me his version of their romance. He seemed startled by the question as though he had never really considered it before. His version wasn't so detailed, but was equally interesting. His story went like this. "The first time I saw Inez, I knew she was trouble. She was young, beautiful and vivacious. Everything about her seemed to sparkle with life. I honestly tried not to pay too much attention to her, but she just kept turning up! When I first started really courting her, she told me she was nearly 17, but I knew she was barely 16. That was my own little secret. She thought she had me fooled and did throughout her life, but I always knew what was really going on. Heh, heh. (He grinned wryly at this with his eyes twinkling with delight.) When I first met Inez and took her places, she was a little backwards and didn't know what to do out in public. She was quite shy for years, especially about eating out. I got to where I didn't take her out to eat on dates because she wouldn't eat anyway. Charley (Mother's dad) rarely took Mamie or the kids to town as they were growing up so I guess it wasn't too surprising she didn't know how to act there. At country parties and dances she was fine. Going to town, though, was hard on her. We dated quite a while and I decided we better get married." I asked him why he thought that. Was he was madly in love with her? "Oh, I just decided it was time. I didn't think we were a very good match, honestly, because we were so different. She was kind of flighty and high tempered. I was in love with her though and didn't want any of the other guys to take her away from me. She was quite popular, you know. Sure enough, I was right about us being so different. She drove me crazy all my life. I never knew what she was going to do next. She spent money like water and was always thinking she was sick and had to go to the doctor. I can't tell you how much money I spent on doctors over the years. Besides that, everytime she had to go to the doctor, I had to leave the crops for a day, which put me behind. Then she really did get sick, didn't she? Poor thing. She had a really rough go of it at the end and I feel bad about it. Who knows? Maybe she really was sick all those years. It sure was aggravating sometimes. I just never felt like I could get ahead until these last ten years."
At this point in the conversation, I was feeling rather discouraged. Mother and Daddy had some marital difficulties when I was a little girl. He quit calling her "Lady" during that time. Lady had always been Daddy's pet name for Mother. When he quit calling her Lady, she thought he didn't love her any more and it really hurt her. They came out of the difficulties, but he never called her Lady again. As Daddy and I were having our conversation about Mother, I was wondering if Mother had been right about him not loving her, but I was sure he did so I had to ask him, "If Mother drove you so crazy, why did you stay in the marriage?" Honestly, I was afraid of the answer he would give me. "Well, she was always a lot of fun, you know! Life was never boring with Inez! and...I loved her. Just because someone drives you crazy sometimes doesn't mean you quit loving them." The perfect answer and true of both of them I think. They loved each other all the way to the end, despite their ups and downs. I think Mother would have realized how much Daddy always loved her if she had heard him at the end of his life when he had Alzheimer's. Oftentimes he would mistake me for Mother. Each time this occurred, he would be worried and concerned that she was safe and had what she needed. He would say, "I love you and will be home as soon as I can Lady. I miss you." I know they were both happy when he finally made it home to her. Their love really was true and eternal.
