Elizabeth Anne VanderPutten - Aunt Doris's Wedding

The Wedding Tale of a Teen-Age Bride

Bob asked me to marry him in October 1952 (see Mr. & Mrs. Robert Vander Putten).

I said OK...he had been offered the job of Auditor with American Airlines in San Francisco...he came back to Brooklyn for Thanksgiving.... And when we were driving somewhere he asked me to get the map out of the glove compartment and THERE WAS MY ENGAGEMENT RING!

When he came home in April for the wedding he was sick as a dog and was absent from the rehearsal and dinner...good thing I trusted him...he did show up for the wedding.

The week before the wedding was terrible weather, raining all the time, but on the 11th I woke to gorgeous skies and warm weather. However the next day, the 12th, was rainy...SPOOKIE...

Our reception was at the Towers Hotel, a sit down for about 80 people with a live band (friend of Bobs) and we spent our wedding night there and the next day and night.

On Monday we went back to our respective homes to pick up stuff and with kisses and such and all our wedding presents headed off to California in a 1947 blue Buick Roadmaster.

We traveled via the best U.S. roads available at the time...the 2 lane blacktops that were the main streets of the country...US 22 to Lebanon PA.; Penn Turnpike to Lima, Ohio; US 30 (Lincoln Hwy) through Canton, Ft. Wayne, Clinton, Cedar Rapids, Council bluffs, Columbus, Grand Island, North Platte, Cheyenne, Salt Lake; then US 40 through Winnemucca, Sparks, Reno, Sacramento, Vacaville, and finally to San Francisco where we took up residence a two-bedroom flat in a Victorian house on Green St.

And much like the characters in "Barefoot in the Park," the couple in the apartment above us had to use our hallway and stairs to get to their place...it was great. We had a ball!

The rest is still a work in progress.

Doris (nee Zwirz) VanderPutten

January 8, 2000

Rio Rancho, NM