Chapter 8     HONEYMOON AND MUD

Verma and I were married in her home in Ramah. The bishop, Richard Bloomfield, my mother's half-brother married us on November 30th, 1922. After we were married in Ramah we stayed there about three days. It rained every day we were there. There was a lot of snow so we decided we couldn't go back to Fort Wingate through the Zuni mountains but we'd have to go the other way, around by Gallup. A nephew of mine said he'd go along with us. So we left Ramah one morning in this Dodge touring car that we'd borrowed to make this trip with. We started out and got in mud. Me had the engine running continuously all day long and only made twelve miles. Come night, we didn't do much traveling after night, it was still raining with a little snow and there was no place to stay. We did make an Indian village, Zuni, which was about twelve miles from our starting point that morning. We reached an adobe built house with a fireplace. They had put their hay in there to save it for their stock for the winter. We were taking a turkey home to have for our Thanksgiving so that was the food we had that night. We roasted part of this trukey in the fireplace without salt or any dressing of any kind. We ate roast turkey and then we all burrowed down in this straw stack in the middle of the room to survive the cold weather during the night. That was where we spent the third night of our honeymoon.

The next day we had just got out on the main highway when we got stuck in a mud hole and broke an axle. Verma’s dad was hauling freight back and forth from Ramah to Gallup and he came along and decided he would take her and my mother and sister with him by team and wagon. It seemed to be faster than the automobile that day. Three days later my nephew and I showed up with the automobile after repairing the axle and waiting for the ground to freeze so we could get on top of the mud and travel on into town.

HONEYMOON AND TURKEY
(this is the same event as described by Verma)

After being married in Ramah we were to leave for Fort Wingate, where Bob lived and maintained a home for his Mother and baby sister. On December second Bob, his mother, sister, nephew Ezra and I started early one morning. We only traveled a short distance and became firmly stranded in the mud. So we walked a short distance to an Indian hogan that had been abandoned for the winter. We had with us a turkey and a fruit cake. When we gained access to the hogan it had a fireplace, a stack of hay and some dried meat hanging from the ceiling and a long horses tail, so we did not touch the jerky. Mother James cooked the turkey over the coals in the fireplace. No salt. We ate the meat and the fruitcake and crawled into the haystack to keep from freezing. Quite a honeymoon!! The next day about noon my father came along with a freight team. Mother James, Hattie and myself climbed into the freight wagon and left the bridegroom and the best man behind. We reached our destination three days ahead of them. A trip never to be forgotten.

Our life in Fort Wingate was somewhat different than when I had lived there many years ago as a child. The fort was headquarters for the war department and the personnel that lived there were receiving and storing TNT powder left over from the war. We now lived in the officer’s quarters. Mother James was a wonderful person, so two families living under one roof was not too bad. I would never advise it because there could never be another person like mother James.