1: The Greatest Love Story of my Generation
The Beginnings
Our first dance was at my 8th grade graduation. (Ed, 14 yrs, 5'1"; Jeanie, 12 yrs, 5', 6th grade)
Senior Prom. Ed (18), Jeanie (16). We were very much in love after going steady for an incredible 4 years. Jeanie wanted to go to college, so we broke up for 3 years. We wrote over 200 letters to each other and saw each other twice a year. She dated her senior year (too much!), wrote a missionary, and was valedictorian. She went to BYU on a scholarship.
From Our 1960 High School Annuals
Jeanie,
In January of 1960 I will have known you for four years. Since the first day I met you, you have been very special to me. In a few years, we can look back on all the places we went and all the fun we had. I would like to see the person who could count all the dates we had. You will always stand out in my mind as the girl I at one time tried to forget but couldn’t. After I graduate and leave, I will still think of you and remember you as the “sweetest girl” I have ever known. I will never regret going steady with you most of the four years I have known you. We could never count all the laughs we had together. Hope your dreams and plans for the future come true. Don’t forget the boy who took two years to win at least part of your heart. I have a sneaky suspicion I will see more of you in the years to come.
“1960”
Love always, Eddie Ford
Eddie,
A most wonderful guy! It really doesn’t seem like we have known each other all of four years. And in those four years, I’ve had more fun that I ever thought possible. No one could count all the places we went or all the wonderful things we did together. I feel sure that I will never forget you. I would really give a lot to be around when all your plans and dreams for the future come true. No one nicer deserves to come out on top. And with your determination, I know that you’ll make it. You really are a nice guy Eddie and I feel good when I think that I was once, “your girl”. Now, I hope and pray that we may always be friends. Knowing you and your family has been swell, I really mean that. I may not always show my feelings. I feel sure that what we are doing is the right thing and that we can make it work. Feelings are sometimes hard but the happy memories and the thoughts of the future glows so bright that differences are soon forgotten. Don’t ever forget that girl that bowls, likes her teacher, and hunts like her Dad, she won’t forget you. Someday, after college graduation, maybe we’ll meet again and who knows what may happen. Stay as level-headed and as wonderful as you are now Eddie and you’ll see that college graduation. From a girl who has a spot deep in her heart for you.
“Love” Luck and Happiness, Jeanie
High School
[high school graduation photos]
Ed Ford & Jeanie Baldwin High School Graduation pictures.
We were a "power couple" in high school. It was a small school where a few good men could rule in sports. We went to state in basketball and were regional winners in baseball and track. The student body president was Dave Moore, and I was the senior class president. (We were best friends.)
Jeanie Baldwin transferred to a high school 1,000 miles away her senior year. She was the prom queen and valedictorian of that high school in Page, AZ. She received academic scholarship to BYU (Brigham Young University). She wrote two letters to me every week for three years. Jeanie also wrote to a missionary for two years. When we got together it was for a week or more at each other's homes. Great times!
1960-1963
I had three main summer jobs that helped me finance college:
- Oxbow Dam
- Kemmerer, Wyoming
- 3 State Area (Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado)
The next summer (1962) and a call to "Chub" was after I had two years of college at OSU. Dave Moore, my best friend, and I decided as students in high school to take a year off--to work 6 months and travel Europe for 6 months. This call landed Dave and I in Kemmerer, WY as iron workers, a dirty job installing a belt system hauling coal from the coal mine to the power plant. On the weekend, we worked Saturday and Sunday at two different service stations. We lived in a railroad car until we bought a trailer home. In January, it caught fire and we almost died!
After a great courtship with me in high school days, Jeanie was now a freshman at BYU, 170 miles away from Kemmerer, WY. We started dating every other weekend when I got off work. What a courtship! When I left for Europe in January, she said she would wait for me.
Not only did she say that she would wait for me, but I also deposited $1,000 in a bank in her name to buy an engagement ring upon my return. (We were still in that three year separation agreement.) She kept writing the missionary and dancing every Saturday at BYU with another young man while I was in Europe.
My best friend and I purchased tickets aboard a German coal freighter for only $160 for transportation to Europe. That trip is a story in itself! I returned from Europe on May 3, 1963, totally broke.
When I returned from Europe, I asked the question, "Will you marry me?" We all know the answer... she said YES and remained true to her high school sweetheart. Then the fun could begin.
After 3 years, no more dating other people! We weren't formally engaged without an engagement ring, but as far as I was concerned, she said "yes" and we were engaged! (A good time to stop writing the missionary.)
Passing of the Ring
This is a copy of a letter from Jeanie to her mother on the custom of passing of the ring at her college residence and becoming formally engaged. One more test of our true love before marriage. We were officially engaged in October on the BYU Campus.
October 1, 1963
“Well, I passed the candle Sunday night! It sure was a long time between Friday night and Sunday night. When I passed the candle, and it was going around for the second time and was about to be me, I thought I was going to faint for sure. Then when I passed that stage, I didn’t think I would have enough breath to blow the thing out. But I did and surprised a few. My roommates were all surprised, but Barbara and some of the girls that lived across from us last year said they knew it was going to be me. They didn’t KNOW though, they only guessed and happened to be right. Everyone asked me how I could go the weekend without wearing it. I said it was hard but that every time Willy went to the bathroom, I ran in my closet, snatched it out of my pocket, and looked at it.”
Saving up for an Education
Jeanie and I worked together to pay for both of our educations. She couldn't receive any financial help from her parents after marriage. Jeanie would go home to Paige, AZ to work keeping the books for a small company and live at home. I needed a major job for 5 months and a minimum of $4,000 saved. After long lines at Union Office wanting a job and a call to "Chub," Dave and I were sent to Kimball, Nebraska. We both were hired on as drivers, and set up for 40 ton P&H cranes at the hundreds of minute man missile sites (in three states). We would get up at 4:00 AM to drive to site and work until 9 or 10 PM. We would pack 6-8 sandwiches for 12-14 hours of work.
Dave and I were fortunate to get these high paying jobs with one phone call!
I went to Cheyenne, WY to pick up my P&H crane. "Chub" was there to greet me as he had been with my friend, Dave, at another docking area. Chub told me to jump up on the 'extended' railroad car and drive this huge crane with a long boom off the double long railroad car. It was my first time driving this rig. I was told that iff you hit the boom hard while driving off you'd be fired! Once I figured out how to start this huge diesel truck, I carefully drove off with the boom barely touching the dirt. No problem for the son of a professional truck driver. Haha!
My friend, Dave, and I stayed in the basement of a home in Nebraska. We had to drive from missile site to missile site sometimes 200 miles apart. For the next four months, this was our schedule: get up at 5 AM. At 6 AM, pick up the operators of the 40 ton P&H cranes and be at the next site. Then we would set for pouring concrete (my job) or put in steel for the next pour. The fun part was laying in the actual "Minute Man Missile" into its silo. We were home by 9 or 10 PM most of the time, 6 days a week!
We made enough money to return to Brigham Young University, buy that ring, and pay for our entire year of school, studying, tests, dances, plays, movies, shows, and more.
[college graduation pictures]
My best comparison of our first year of school together and engaged would be the "Camelot" of our marriage.
Love Letters
You would not believe the love letters between us. Here are a sample of a few lines from my letters to her the four months before we met in Provo to become engaged on October 1, 1963. These are the last of the 200 total letters we wrote to each other over three years. I still enjoy reading these love letters we wrote while being separated for 3 years!
May 5, 1963 - September 10, 1963
1. “As if father time himself had planned it this way only to be sure that we both had matured enough and were really ready to express to each other this simple and unmoved love that we have, in reality, always felt for each other.”
2. “Just 5 days since I have seen you in Provo and you said ‘Yes!’”
3. “I can’t believe how much I love you Jeanie and the joy it brings to know that with passing years this love will be even stronger and deeper.”
4. “Your love glows within me and drives an energy I have never felt before.”
5. “I love you so much that at times I can hardly stand it to be away from you for so long.”
6. “I have given you my heart to hold in your hand and to do with it as you like. If you love it as it loves you it will make you the happiest girl alive, but if it isn’t loved as much in return it would die.”
7. “Jeanie just to be in your loving arms again whispering loving words in your ear is enough to make me shout with joy.”
8. “To hold back just once of your love now would be a crime indeed. Love especially young love, should be remembered always.”
9. “It is my opinion that few couples can even breath the “pure love such as ours.”
10. “Hi my precious love! Jeanie when I read your letters, I get so excited just thinking about going to school with you that I can hardly sit still long enough to answer.”
11. “I never dreamed I would long to be with you so much; to hold and kiss you is a joy I can’t think of without wanting to shout to the world the love I feel for you! Just to have your cheek touch mine would sadly leave me unconscious much less to kiss you and hold you in my arms!”
12. “ I have come to love you so much this summer that you are almost a ‘goddess’ to me. I would surely melt if I were even to touch you. To kiss you would be an ecstasy that my heart would surely stop my heart from beating.”
(CONFIDENTIAL Letters from Ed Ford to Jeanie Baldwin. Brian Ford is the trustee of all of Ed’s written material, poems, and personal letters. You have seen a few quotations of the written love letters that Ed wrote especially just before he became formally engaged in Provo. “Young Love” are excerpts from only 24 of his over 100 written letters, several from countries in Central Europe. Jeanie’s letters to Ed at this time have been lost and never expected to become public.)
The Start of our Marriage
On October 1, 1963 I gave Jeanie a ring in proposal and she said YES in front of the Administration Building on BYU Campus.
We were married in the Logan Temple on June 5, 1964 and held a reception for immediate family and friends who traveled to Boise, Idaho. We drove from Logan and spent our first night together in Mountain Home, just outside of Boise, Idaho.
Fun details from the start of our marriage:
- Job managing King Henry apartments with 450 students
- Skiing every Friday my senior year
- Getting my personal pilots flying license the same day I graduated
- Held jobs to pay for both of us--no student loans
- The hayride for 100 students in an 18-wheeler low boy
- Camping and killing a deer for meat
- Winning a $3,000 scholarship in May of senior year for being the top student salesman in the United States
- Having our first child - Scott
- Interviewing for jobs with a one year internship before going back to BYU for my MBA Degree (big surprise--didn't pass in math)
- Another baby just after we graduated - Troy
- Bought one of the first new Ford Mustangs (cost $2,365)
- Caterpillar Tractor flew Jeanie to Chicago (because she was so pregnant)
- Ed was hooked onto Bill & Elaine Blanks' car and hauled them on their way to the East Coast (to save gas)
- Lived in a trailer house for the first 18 years of my life
- Flag football was my favorite subject of study in grade school
- No indoor plumbing until I was in the 8th grade, no TV until I was in the 9th grade
- Had my own .22 rifle when I was 10 years old (safety certification)
- Shot my first deer when I was 12 (with Grandpa Ford)
- Spent 3 of my greatest summers in Hungry Horse, Montana (ages 10, 11, and 12)
- Threw rocks at bears in garbage dump, prepared to run if necessary
- Asked Jeanie to my eighth grade graduation dance, she was 12 years old
- Wrestled a 400-pound bear in a cage and survived (it had no teeth or claws)
- First kiss with Jeanie in the summer when she was 13 years old and in 7th grade, to the song Love Letters in the Sand (Pat Boone)
- No phone until I went to college
- In Montana, I started a forest fire when I was smoking with a friend; thankfully it didn't spread
- Almost flunked out of college at OSU for getting an F- in Englihs
- I worked on construction jobs for the Teamsters, Cement Finishers, and Iron Workers Unions
- Paid for all six of my years at college; two years at OSU and four years at BYU
- Joined the church while at OSU in January 1961 (I was a "golden contact")
- Jeanie would marry and she also wanted to graduate; after two years as a member of the LDS church and six months married, I was called to serve as a member of the bishopric in the 42nd ward at BYU (Bruce Clark Bishop, Dean of Humanities)
- Less than 5% of couples finish college together (we didn't know)
Comments
Post a Comment