Gayle Newby (GN) and Frank Newby (FN)

GN: I’d spent all the afternoon of the date sunbathing. I was red as a beet. My hair was a mess, and I really didn’t want to go. And as we were walking down the stairs, I saw the three guys sitting there and I said to my friend, ’Look at the hick with no tie! I’ll bet I get stuck with him.’ And I did. We went out and I knew he didn’t have any money. They wanted to stop for a hamburger and a coke and — and he just frankly told me, ’I can’t afford it.’ Somehow or other that seemed honest to me. I said, ’Lets just sit in the car and talk.’ And talk we did–talked ourselves right into love and marriage. And then I called him and we decided maybe we wanted to see each other again. But friends from Chicago had come in, and they took me out to lunch. So I stood him up.

FN: I waited longer for her that day than I’ve ever waited for anybody in my life. I don’t think I really was mad; I was disgusted. And I just wrote this girl off. And so I went back to work–worked Monday night, worked Tuesday night. And Wednesday evening the manager said, ’Frank, you’ve got a telephone call.’ And in her little girl voice she started explaining to me. And the sucker that I was I accepted the apology. And on Friday I took her out to the farm to meet my mother and dad. And I told Dad Saturday, ’If you can find us a minister, we’re gonna get married tomorrow.’ And on the honeymoon we got halfway to Lake Schaefer and I discovered that I only had twenty dollars.

GN: So we honeymooned on twenty dollars and it was fun.

FN: We found a motel for three dollars a night. We discovered a beer garden where you could get a hamburger and a bottle of beer for, I think, 75 cents. So we lived three days and three nights–

GN: –on hamburger, beer and love. And I’ve never once regretted a three-day courtship.