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Saturday, March 7, 2009

FROM 1929 – YOUNG COUPLE TO WED SAT.


Miss Muriel Dorothy Portfors and Mr. Fairly John Walrath, both of Orofino, will be married at the Lewis-Clark hotel in Lewiston Saturday, May 18th, by Rev. Chas. H. Addleman, pastor of the Christian church of Clarkston, at 5:30 p.m. The ceremony will be performed in the presence of a few intimate friends of the bride and groom. The informal double ring ceremony will be used. Following the wedding the young couple will immediately leave by car for Walla Walla on a honeymoon tour which will take them into Washington, Oregon and southern Idaho. They expect to return to Orofino May 25th and will be at home after the first of June.

The bride is the only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C. O. Portfors of Orofino, a graduate of the Orofino high school, and for the past year bookkeeper for her father in his Ford garage. The groom is the elder son of Mr. and Mrs. H. L. Walrath, Orofino, also a graduate of the Orofino high school and of the University of Idaho forestry school, and for the last two years has been employed by the Clearwater Timber company in woods and office logging work.

They are well known and well liked young people of this community and have many friends who wish them future health and happiness.

Mrs. E. W. Jewell and Mrs. H. R. Snider tendered the bride-elect a china shower at the latter's home May second, when many beautiful dish gifts were received. (From the Clearwater Tribune, Orofino, Idaho)

So, one day I questioned my mother about this wedding. She explained that she and Fairly arranged to have all the furniture removed from a room at the Hotel Lewis-Clark in Lewiston. Grandma Portfors made her wedding dress, a flapper-style dress of gray satin with an overlay of gray lace. On her wedding day, she and Fairly together with their attendants left their parents behind and drove to Lewiston where they were married as pre-arranged at the hotel. To my knowledge no photographs were taken.

"What!" I said. "Surely you could have had a big wedding in Orofino!"

"I know," Mother answered with a shrug and a sheepish grin. "That's what my mother wanted. She wanted to make me a white wedding dress and invite the Canadian relatives and have a big wedding at the Christian Church."

"Why didn't you?" I asked, still incredulous.

"I refused," she replied, with no further explanation.

I recently related this conversation to a friend who quietly said, "Your mother wanted to be in control." Yes, I think she put her finger on it. KW

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