Here is the latest chapter in the story of the courtship and early married life and times of my maternal grandparents, Emily Auble and Lyle Carringer, who married in June 1918. The background information and the list of chapters of their life together are listed at the end of this post. This is historical fiction with real people and real events, and is how it might have been.
And now we are into March 1918, and the June wedding needs to be planned.
I asked my AI Assistant Anthropic Claude to tell the story of Emily and Lyle planning the wedding in March 1918 (I offered helpful suggestions...). This is Part 1 of 2:
(AI Google NotebookLM Infographic: Wedding Plan, March 1918)
Emily and Lyle's Story:
Planning Everything -- March 1918 (Part 1 of 2)
The List on the Kitchen Table
It was Georgia who produced the notepad. Not Emily's small social
notebook but Georgia's own — a serious, cloth-bound thing she used
for household accounts — which she set on the kitchen table on the
first Thursday evening in March with the air of someone convening a
meeting.
"If you're going to plan a wedding," she said, settling
into her chair, "you should write everything down. Otherwise you
will talk about the same things three times and forget the important
ones."
Lyle was still holding his coffee cup. He looked at Emily, who
looked at the notepad, which looked like it had been waiting for
exactly this conversation.
"All right," Emily said, pulling the notepad toward her.
She uncapped her pen. "Everything."
They had told their parents the previous Thursday — Lyle's
parents first, at 30th Street, where Della had produced tears
immediately and Austin had shaken Lyle's hand for a long time without
speaking, which from Austin communicated everything it needed to.
Georgia had already known, because Georgia always already knew, but
she received the formal announcement with the appropriate gravity of
someone hearing something for the first time.
The telling had been the easy part. Now came the details, and
details, as Lyle knew from his PX work, were where good intentions
met actual arithmetic.
Emily wrote at the top of the page: June 19, 1918. Then
she drew a line beneath it and began.
"First," she said, "where we live."
Where They Would Live
The question of where Lyle and Emily would live after June 19 had
been in both their minds since February, circling without landing. A
PFC's salary had improved but not transformed — thirty-eight
dollars a month now, with the possibility of further advancement but
not the certainty of it. Whatever they found would need to be modest,
practical, and near a trolley line.
"I can live off-base if I'm married," Lyle said. "I've
already looked into it. I have to request approval, and there's
paperwork, but it's standard for married enlisted men. The barracks
bunk goes to someone else."
"And you'd commute to the base every day," Emily said.
"Twenty minutes on the trolley from most of the neighborhoods
near downtown. Less from some."
Georgia was watching both of them with the attention she brought
to things she had already thought through. When they looked at her,
she said: "You're going to say I should come with you."
"We weren't going to say it like that," Emily said.
"Then how were you going to say it?"
Emily looked at the notepad. "I was going to say that we'd
been talking about what makes the most sense, practically, given that
you have no income of your own and that splitting a household three
ways costs less than managing two separate ones, and that we would
both very much like—"
"Yes," Georgia said.
Emily looked up. "Yes?"
"Yes, I'll come," Georgia said. "Obviously. Did you
think I wouldn't?"
"We didn't know how to ask," Lyle admitted.
"You just asked," Georgia said. "Write it down."
Emily wrote: Three people. Then, after a pause: Georgia's
room must face the garden if there is one.
Georgia looked at what she'd written. "I don't require a
garden," she said.
"I know," Emily said. "I require you to have one."
Georgia picked up her coffee cup and said nothing further on the
subject, which meant the matter was settled.
They needed four rooms — a bedroom, a room for Georgia, a
kitchen and sitting room. Near the trolley. Below a certain price per
month that Lyle and Emily calculated together on the back of the
notepad, factoring his salary, what Emily made at Marston's, and a
modest reserve for the unexpected.
"South Park," Lyle said. "Or Golden Hill. Or
Sherman Heights. Or Grant Hill. Some good streets there with houses
that subdivide into flats. Close to the 30th Street line."
"I know one on Fern Street," Emily said. "Two
blocks from the trolley. I walked past it last week — there was a
sign for the upper flat."
"Fern Street," Lyle said. He had walked those blocks
himself a hundred times, going to and from his parents' house. It
felt right in the way that familiar things feel right when you see
them from a new angle.
Emily wrote: Fern Street — check upper flat.
The Dress
Gladys had taken the problem of the wedding dress in hand with the
efficiency of someone who considers organizational challenges to be
personally directed at her and is unwilling to be defeated by them.
"You can't buy a wedding dress," she said, at lunch the
first week of March, with the directness that made her invaluable.
"Not on your budget. Not a good one."
"I know," Emily said.
"But you can make one. Or have one made." Gladys had
clearly been thinking about this for some time. "Mrs. Hennessey
in alterations made her daughter's wedding dress last year — I saw
it. Beautiful work. And she uses Marston's fabric at cost because
she's been here fifteen years."
Emily put down her sandwich. "You've already spoken to her."
"I mentioned it in passing," Gladys said, which was
Gladys's way of saying she had conducted a thorough preliminary
negotiation.
"And?"
"She says blue silk with a white hat is the right choice.
Modest, modern, not the kind of thing that looks like it's trying too
hard. With the right cut, simple lace at the collar and cuffs, you'll
look exactly right."
Emily was quiet for a moment, thinking about what exactly right
meant for a quiet wedding at Central Christian Church in wartime San
Diego. Not the grand gown of peacetime tradition. Something that
understood its own occasion.
"When can she start?" Emily asked.
"She's waiting for you to come see her," Gladys said,
and picked up her sandwich with the expression of someone who has
done what needed doing.
Emily went to see Mrs. Hennessey that afternoon. The woman was
sixty, brisk, and had hands that moved over fabric the way Georgia's
moved in the kitchen — with a certainty that comes from knowing
exactly what you're doing and having done it ten thousand times. She
had Emily measured in ten minutes, made three chalk marks on a length
of blue silk, and told her the dress would be ready for a first
fitting by the last week of April.
"Simple," Mrs. Hennessey said, which was instruction,
not description.
"Simple," Emily agreed.
When she told Lyle about it on Thursday, he said: "Did you
choose?"
"Mrs. Hennessey chose," Emily said. "I agreed."
"Like Frances with the birthday dress?"
"Very like Frances," Emily said. "I'm learning to
trust the person who knows."
Who Would Give Her Away
This question sat on the notepad for a week before either of them
addressed it properly. Emily's father had died wo years before. She
had no brothers. The question of who would walk her down the aisle —
short as Central Christian's aisle was — had no obvious answer.
"Franklin," Lyle said one Thursday, meaning Emily's
uncle, Georgia’s brother.
"He's in Los Angeles," Emily said. "I last saw him
at father’s funeral. We haven't spoken in over a year."
"Would you want him there?"
Emily was quiet. The question of her uncle was complicated in the
way that family questions often are — history and distance and the
accumulated small failures of staying in touch accumulated into
something that was easier not to examine directly.
"I don't know," she said honestly. "I'd need to
write to him."
"Then write to him," Lyle said. "Whatever he says,
you'll know you asked."
Emily wrote to Franklin that week. The letter took three drafts.
She told him the date, the church, the small size of the occasion.
She said she would understand if the distance made it impractical.
She did not say that she hoped he would come, because she was still
deciding whether she hoped that.
While they waited for his reply, Georgia said, quietly, one
evening when it was just the two of them at the kitchen table: "If
he doesn't come, I will."
Emily looked up. "You're not my uncle."
"No," Georgia said. "But I'm what you have. And I
know the way down an aisle." She returned to her knitting.
"Write it down in the planning book, either way, so you're
ready."
Emily wrote: Franklin — waiting for reply. Georgia — if
needed. Both — if possible.
The Invitation List
This was where arithmetic and affection came into direct conflict,
and where Lyle's auditor's mind proved most useful.
"Twelve," he said, when they had been going around the
question for twenty minutes. "Maximum. The church's small parlor
holds twelve comfortably and sixteen with some goodwill. We have
twelve without stretching."
Emily counted on the notepad. From the Carringer side: Austin and
Della, Uncle Edgar, Grandmother Abbie. Uncle Davey and Amy, Maybelle
if she was included. Aunt Matie. That was eight. Abbie's sister Elizabeth and her family couldn't travel.
From Emily's side: Georgia. Franklin, if he came. Possibly his
wife Ella, if he brought her. Georgia's brother in Los Angeles and her sister in Chicago couldn't
travel. That was one certain, possibly three.
"Gladys?" Emily said.
Lyle considered. "Is Gladys family?"
"She's my best friend, built the dress, organized Mrs.
Hennessey, and will probably run the reception before we've asked her
to," Emily said. "That seems like family.”
"Gladys," Lyle agreed.
"Charlie Morrison," Emily offered.
"Charlie," Lyle confirmed, without discussion, because
Charlie Morrison was the kind of friend who had earned inclusion in
things, and was his best friend.
They counted: thirteen possible, eleven certain, plus Lyle and
Emily who would not be seated. Lyle wrote the number at the bottom of
the page and put a box around it. It was a small wedding, and it was
theirs, and it was exactly right for what they were and what they
had.
The Church
On the first Sunday in March, Lyle accompanied Emily and Georgia
to the morning service at Central Christian Church on E Street, as
had become their practice on the Sundays when his Liberty Pass
allowed it. After the congregation had filed out and Georgia had
begun the deliberate business of finding her coat and bag — a
process that reliably created two or three minutes of useful space —
Lyle stepped aside with Reverend Crabtree in the small vestibule
beside the sanctuary door. The Reverend already knew Lyle by name,
had known Emily since she first appeared in a pew beside Georgia
Auble, and listened to the request with the quiet attention of a man
for whom such conversations are both routine and never less than
serious.
Lyle told him the date — June nineteenth — and Crabtree opened
his calendar book on the spot, confirmed the date was clear, and
wrote it in with the finality of an official act. Then he asked the
practical questions in the orderly way of a pastor who has done this
many times: the marriage license, which the county clerk issued and
which needed to be obtained beforehand and brought to the church; the
order of the ceremony, which Crabtree described as processional,
opening words, the vows, the exchange of rings, the pronouncement,
and the blessing — simple, complete, Protestant in its directness;
and whether Lyle wanted any particular scripture or hymn included,
which Lyle said he would discuss with Emily and let him know.
Crabtree noted all of it, shook Lyle's hand with the warmth he
reserved for things that mattered, and said he looked forward to June
nineteenth. By the time Georgia had located her second glove, it was
done.
To be continued ....==============================
Here is the Video Overview of this story by Google NotebookLM (also on my YouTube channel here):
This is historical fiction based on the facts that are available for the life and family of my maternal grandparents, Lyle and Emily(Auble) Carringer. It is based on my research, social history and society norms at the time and place, and it is likely realistic. It might have happened this way.
Stay tuned for the next chapters in this family story.
==========================
- Emily and Lyle's Story: The Dance.
- Emily and Lyle’s Story: A San Diego Romance In 1917.
- Emily and Lyle’s Story: The Promise Made.
- Emily and Lyle’s Story: Letters From Boot Camp – Part 1, May 1917
- Emily and Lyle’s Story: Letters From Boot Camp – Part 2, May-June 1917.
- Emily and Lyle’s Story: Letters From Boot Camp – Part 3, Weeks 5 and 6, June 1917
- Emily and Lyle’s Story: Letters From Boot Camp – Part 4 (Weeks 7 and 8), Late June to July 1917
- Emily and Lyle’s Story: Coming Home -- Lyle’s Leave, July 1917
- Emily and Lyle’s Story: Lyle Carringer Starts Work at the PX
- Emily and Lyle’s Story: Lyle’s First Liberty Day -- August 1917
- Emily and Lyle’s Story: Emily’s Birthday Gift, August 1917 (Part 1)
- Emily and Lyle’s Story: Emily’s Birthday Gift, August 1917 (Part 2)
- Emily and Lyle’s Story: Lyle’s 26th Birthday Party in 1917 (Part 1)
- Emily and Lyle’s Story: Lyle’s 26th Birthday Party in 1917 (Part 2)
- Emily and Lyle’s Story: Holiday Season, Thanksgiving to Christmas 1917
- Emily and Lyle’s Story: New Year’s Eve, 1917
- Emily and Lyle’s Story: Ordinary Days, January and February 1918
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