Treasure Chest Thursday: Dancing in Celebration of 62 Years

Picture the scene. It's early in the morning in Charleston, SC. A light fog is evident at Middleton Place Gardens. Look closely and see two men fishing in one of the ponds.

One man is older and the other looks like a nervous young man. What did they discuss? How long did they sit there on that bank and just get to know one another?

I don't know the answers to those questions, but I do know the significance of the day and that time together.

The younger man was about to be married that afternoon, January 14, 1948, to his beloved. The older man was her father. Together they sat for hours. Time passed quickly. It has been reported that the time passed so quickly that the two men had to hurry back to town to get dressed in order to make it to the church on time. It has been reported they were in such a hurry that the young man had to borrow a tie from the older man to wear.

Ah, young love. The love between the two who were married that day lasted. It lasted through years of separation thanks to Uncle Sam, through the loss of a child, through the agony and despair of cancer, and through death.

The two young lovers have been gone for many a year now. They were taken much too soon, but their legacy in their children still lives. And it lives strong.

The motto of the two? God, Family and Country.

Their love? My treasure.

I saw them both dancing in heaven on the night my youngest child was born. It was such a comfort to be for them both to beam happily as they danced for the grandchild who would never meet them. Tears? You bet, but it provides my desire to learn more of my family's genealogy and to pass it on to my children.

If you are blessed to have older family members still dancing, be sure to get to really know them. Their love may become your treasure as well.