REFLECTIONS
My Marriage To Grammy Nofsker’s Little Girl
I’d like to talk a little now about my marriage. Dollie and I have been married for fifty-five years. Our family that lives here in Blair County had a dinner for us at The Allegro restaurant in Altoona. If I may just digress a little I will list the family that we have here. There is Larry who bought me the computer that I’m using to type this story and a lot of other fun things. Then there is my oldest son, Leon, who does things like mowing around our home, his wife Linda and their daughter Amanda. Then there is our first born Carol, who is married to Roger Trautman. They have one daughter, Kimberly, married to Richard Johnson with two children, Richie and Brittany. They live in Florida and we don’t get to see them as much as we would like. The dinner was fabulous, but we missed Kimberly and her family.
I was drafted to go into the army in WW2. The departure date was June 21, 1944 from the courthouse in Hollidaysburg. When I received my orders, we decided to get married. Dollie was underage but Grammy Nofsker said she would sign the papers for our marriage license. This was the only child that she would do this for. So we got the license and had to see the judge to get permission to skip the three-day waiting period.
Things started to move rather quickly. We planned to get married on the next Sunday. Dollie called her niece, Lois in New Jersey, to come and be her maid of honor. I called Walter Snyder, a friend, to be my best man. They both accepted. My granddad, Aaron Bowser gave Dollie $15.00 to purchase a dress, shoes and hat. Our minister, John Raugh, performed the wedding at my home. We had the house decorated with bunches of roses from several bushes that we had below our house. Reverend Raugh had a funeral early in the afternoon, and then held our ceremony later in the afternoon.
Several guests, some uncles and aunts and Dollies sisters and brother attended our wedding. My mother, with the help of several of the ladies, made a supper of beef, noodles, gravy, mashed potatoes and a cake. I don’t remember how many ate, but all I remember was that I had to leave on the following Wednesday to go into the Army. Dollie and I went to church that evening and Pastor Raugh announced, "We have two new people here tonight". When everybody looked around and did not see any strangers he said, "Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Smith." That was the start of our fifty-five year journey that we celebrated at the Allegro Restaurant.
