66 Years Ago on Route 66

Route 66 is one of the iconic national highways in the U.S. On May 26, 1957, 66 years ago today, June and I drove up that highway as newlyweds. We were on our wedding trip to Chicago—and driving up Route 66 was the best way to get there. 

Route 66 was established in 1926, and it was the major U.S. highway from Chicago to Los Angeles, traversing about 2,450 miles.

In Chapter 12 of the powerful novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939), author John Steinbeck writes:

HIGHWAY 66 IS THE main migrant road. 66—the long concrete path across the country ….

66 is the path of a people in flight, refugees from dust and shrinking land, from the thunder of tractors and shrinking ownership …. 66 is the mother road, the road of flight.

But even by the 1940s, Route 66 was viewed in a much happier mood by many people: Nat King Cole recorded the hit song, “Get Your Kicks on Route 66” in 1946 (hear it here).

It amazes me now to realize that June and I were driving up Route 66 for our honeymoon “kicks” only 31 years after it was established as a national highway.

“57 Years for a ’57 Marriage” was the title of the blog post I made on May 25, 2014. I made some reference there to our marriage, but it was more about the year 1957 in general. (You are invited to (re)read that post, and see our wedding picture, here.)

June and I met in September 1955, not long after we matriculated as first-year students at Southwest Baptist College in Bolivar, Missouri (30+ miles north of Springfield.)

It wasn’t very long before we started talking about getting married at some point. A few months before graduating from the small junior college, we decided that point was soon after our graduation in 1957.

So on May 26, a Sunday afternoon, we were married in Rondo Baptist Church, June’s home church about 15 miles north of Bolivar. Following the reception in the decorated basement of the church, we left at about 4:30 and drove east for a little over an hour to Lebanon, where we got on Route 66.

It was not much more than an hour’s drive to Rolla, but it had been a big day already, so we decided to stop for the night at Schuman’s Motor Inn. (I was amazed to find that there is a “Shuman's Motor Inn US Route 66 Rolla Missouri 1957” postcard for sale on eBay.).

The cost for the room in Rolla was $7—which seems very cheap now, but that was all I made in seven hours working for minimum wage at a shoe factory later that summer. At the current minimum wage in Missouri that would be equivalent to just over $72.

The next night we stayed in the southern suburbs of Chicago—and it cost $9 there. And then we spent a couple of nights in the elegant Palmer House in downtown Chicago. The construction of that 25-story hotel was completed in 1925. It was an impressive place for us, two Missouri farm kids, to stay!

So, what can I say after 66 years of marriage? Would I do it again, get married that young? We struggled financially for our first nine years, during which time the two of us, combined, were full-time students for eleven years—and we also had two children by November 1960.

But, yes, I would do it again, no question about it. In spite of the challenges of those first years—and different challenges in the following decades—I have never for a moment regretted marrying my beautiful 19-year-old bride 66 years ago, when I was still 18.

For several years now, we have talked about hoping we will be able to celebrate our 75^th wedding anniversary. My parents were married 88 years ago this month, and they celebrated their 72^nd anniversary about 2½ months before my father died at age 92 in July 2007.

But we are still hoping that on May 26, 2032, we will, indeed, be able to celebrate 75 years of married life. We may not make it—but if not, we will die trying. 

A Night at the Elms

The Elms Hotel and Spa in Excelsior Springs, Missouri, is about sixteen miles from where June and I live. Many times we have driven by the Elms but have never stayed there. That will soon change: we are about to spend a night at the Elms as so many others have over the past 130 years.

TRUMAN AT THE ELMS

The presidential election of 1948 was long ago, but it is still one that is widely known. Upon Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death in April 1945, Vice President Harry Truman suddenly became the 33^rd POTUS. He was relatively unknown when elected as V.P. and was quite unpopular during his first term.

Even though the incumbent, he was the definite underdog in 1948. It widely thought he would lose that election to Thomas Dewey, the flashy New York Governor.

According to David McCullough in his massive book Truman (1992), on the evening of the 1948 election, Truman and two of his aides “drove to Excelsior Springs, the little resort town across the Missouri [River] in Clay County, and checked into the Elms Hotel.”

This was “the same place Truman had escaped to sixteen years earlier, crushed by disappointment the night he learned he was not to be Tom Pendergast’s choice for governor.”

McCullough goes on to say,

The sprawling three-story stone-and-timber hotel was the latest of several that had occupied the site since mineral springs were discovered there in the 1880s. Its chief attractions were seclusion, peace, and quiet. Franklin Roosevelt, John D. Rockefeller, and Al Capone were all known to have escaped from public view at the Elms (p. 705).

It was while at the Elms that Truman learned he had won the election. The next day he posed for the iconic picture of him smiling broadly while holding the Chicago Tribune paper boldly declaring “Dewey Defeats Truman.”

THE WATERS AT THE ELMS

In the 1870s and 1880s there was a boom of resorts built to make it possible for people to “take the waters,” drinking and bathing in mineral water that supposedly had healing powers. Such resorts were built all over Missouri as well as in many other states.

Loring Bullard’s book Healing Waters: Missouri’s Historic Mineral Springs and Spas was published in 2004. “By all standards,” Bullard writes, “Excelsior Springs must be considered the state’s premier mineral water resort.” He goes on to say that “it is the only mineral water site still operating as a resort” (p. 133). And that is because of the Elms Hotel and Spa.

Excelsior Springs, now a town of some 11,500 people, has long billed itself as “American’s Haven of Health.” It became a town in 1881, a year following the discovery of natural spring water that was thought to have healing qualities.

The first Elms Hotel opened for business in 1888. After being destroyed by fire five years later, the second Elms Hotel was opened in 1909—only to be destroyed by fire the very next year. The current Elms hotel was built of native stone and opened in 1912—and has undergone many renovations since then.   

THE SEATS AT THE ELMS

For June and me, tomorrow (May 26) is our 60^th sixtieth wedding anniversary. We are going to have a bigger celebration with our children and grandchildren in July. Just the two of us, though, are going to celebrate the actual date by spending a night at the Elms.

I don’t know how much we will “take the waters” at the Elms, but perhaps we will be able to reap some benefit there as we shoot for our 75^th anniversary. (Is that too much for us to hope for, an anniversary celebration in 2032?)

57 Years for a ’57 Marriage

Tomorrow, June and I will celebrate our wedding anniversary. We were married in 1957, hence the title of this article.

Many of you remember the year 1957, although there are some readers of this blog who were born after 1951-52 and so don’t remember ’57. But for those who remember that year well, you probably also recall how then 1900 seemed like a very long time in the past.

Well, now it is as many years back to 1957 as it was in 1957 back to 1900!

Do you “old timers” remember some of the following things about 1957? The top two hit songs of the year were Elvis Presley’s “All Shook Up” and Pat Boone’s “Love Letters in the Sand.” (I liked the latter much more than the former.)

The movie that won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1957 was “Bridge on the River Kwai.” Many of you probably remember the touching 1957 family movie “Old Yeller.”

Although it came out toward the end of 1956, Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments” was popular in 1957, and June and I saw it on our wedding trip.

The New York Times bestseller list for May 26, 1957, indicated that John F. Kennedy’s “Profiles in Courage” and Grace Metalious’s novel “Peyton Place” had been on that list for the most weeks in the non-fiction and fiction categories, respectively.

L & J Seat (5/26/57)

The most popular toys that year were Slinkys and Hula Hoops.

Many things were quite different in 1957 than they are now. After we married, we had only one landline, rotary dial telephone. Long-distance calls were expensive—and rare.

And since we were students and didn’t have much money, we didn’t even own a television set for several years.

The summer we got married, I worked at the shoe factory in Windsor, Mo., where I was also pastor of a small mission church. Most of that summer I earned only the minimum wage of $1.00 an hour—plus the $25 a week received from the church.

That fall after we enrolled in William Jewell College, I was happy to get a good-paying job in downtown Kansas City: it paid $1.17 an hour when I started, if I remember correctly.

Granted, a dollar went further back then. When we moved to Liberty at the end of the summer, we were happy to find a two-room apartment for $50 a month, including utilities. The average cost of a new house was just over $12,000 then.

Gasoline averaged about 24 cents a gallon—although I remember buying some for 17.9 cents during a “price war” in Liberty.

One of the top-selling cars in 1957 was the Chevrolet Bel Air—and the price of a new two door hardtop, like the one pictured, was $2,300. (The one in the picture is priced at $139,900 now!)

In January 1957, Dwight D. Eisenhower was inaugurated for his second term as POTUS. In September he sent federal troops to Arkansas to provide safe passage into Central High School for the Little Rock Nine.

In October 1957 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite to orbit the earth. That event sent a shock wave through the American public, as it seemed to indicate the technological superiority of the USSR.

Yes, it is interesting to look back to 1957 and to remember the way things were then and how different things are now.

But for me, personally, the best thing about 1957 was getting married to a wonderful woman who has been willing to put up with me for 57 years—and counting.