Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!

My parents were married on 29 August 1958 in Hamilton, Massachusetts at the Christ Episcopal Church on Asbury Street.  This building is still there, although now it is the little chapel and a larger sanctuary was built in the early 1960s.

Mr and Mrs. John W. Wilkinson

My parents were married the year there were ten tropical storms.  The morning of the wedding Hurricane Daisy passed within 70 miles of Nantucket.  In Hamilton there was wind and rain, but no major damage.  The power went out but came back in time for the ceremony and reception. My mom wanted a candle lit ceremony and the church didn't allow it, but it might have happened if the power stayed out!  Meanwhile, Hurricane Ella was already forming in the Caribbean, and headed to Texas that same week.  Less than a month later Hurricane Helene hit New England and Nova Scotia, causing major damage along the coast.

Mom and Dad's wedding reception was held at the United Shoe Machinery Corporation Country Club in Beverly.  This was where Mom's father worked, and where my Dad's father's worked, too, right across the street.  This facility still exists, but it is now the public golf course for the city of Beverly, Massachusetts.  "The Shoe" or USMC is now the Cummings Center, an office park.

Left to right:  

Stanley and Gertrude Allen (my Mom's parents), Mr. and Mrs. John W. Wilkinson (just married!),  Bertha and Donald Wilkinson (my Dad's parents)

My parents in the 1980s

from the church directory portrait book, 

First Congregational Church, Holden, Massachusetts

Dad passed away in 2002.

The 1958 Tropical Storms at Wikipedia:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Atlantic_hurricane_season

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!", Nutfield Genealogy, posted August 29, 2016,  ( http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2016/08/happy-anniversary-mom-and-dad.html: accessed [access date]).