Nita and Ted set their wedding date for January 31, 1948. The wedding was planned for Scofield Church located downtown at Harwood and Bryan. The reception was to be at our house on Tremont. Ted’s dad, Dr. C.F. Lincoln, Sr., who the family called Poppy, would perform the ceremony. Dr. Lincoln had been a missionary for years in Central America where Ted was born. He returned in the twenties then had a great deal to do in founding the Dallas Theological Seminary where he currently taught. Again we did some minor work on the house and with the dining room now being used for dining; the house could handle many people as it was originally intended.

January 1948 was colder than usual with an early snow. While Joe and I were making a snowman of Ted and Nita in the yard, they drove up. Like the silly kids we were, we then ran through the house to hide. This was the beginning of an awkward period in which I managed to break many things. The first disaster was to knock off several glasses that were wedding presents on the edge of the dining table in the flight through the house.

I would like to blame my destructiveness on a growing spurt I was going through but, whatever the reason, I continued the damages. By the time Nita had replaced the wedding glasses, I threw a ping pong paddle through the window of the big downstairs bedroom. The room was no place to play ping pong and the table I sat up was too small. I did not throw it intentionally; it just slipped out of my hand.

The morning of the wedding we had more bad weather, this time in the form of ice. Joe and I had what we considered a large collection of baseball bats for the coming season. There were all broken but taped. In spite of the ice on everything, including the bats, I decided to work through our collection of about five bats and take some practice cuts in the back yard.

Pop came out the back door and said, “Billy, you better put that down before you break something else.” Before I concluded my feeble excuse of “what can I harm out here” the icy bat slipped out of my hand and flew through the bathroom window. Later that day when the wedding cake, with a tier of posts holding up the top section was delivered, Nita held me in the bathroom. When it was safely in place, I was released but banned from the dining room until the reception.

The wedding was at Scofield Church with Ted’s dad, Dr. Lincoln performing the service. Nita’s maid of honor was Mary Bess and Ted’s best man was his brother, Jim. One of Ted’s close cousins was out of town; Merwin Seay was in South America. Merwin’s brothers, Bill and Frank, were in the wedding party with Dan Sneed and Charles Hinckley, close friends of Ted’s. Nita’s close friends, Mary and Hazel were bridesmaids.

The reception on the night of January 31, 1948 was held at our house on Tremont. The ice was gone by nightfall but it was still cold. I was allowed in the dining room; they either trusted me not to break anything or banning me would have looked bad to the guests.

Several pictures were made at the reception. These were about the only interior pictures of the house made while we lived in it. Fifty two years later, they were important in bringing local and national television interest to the house.

The Wedding Party

The Wedding Reception

During the reception I neither damaged the house nor embarrassed the family.  If nothing was broken and no one hurt, I considered it a successful evening.

Joe and I piled up an obnoxious amount of cake and ice cream and retreated to my room. At that time, my room was the upstairs small east bedroom.

Fifty two years later my son, Andrew, who was about the age I was in 1948 did the same thing but he chose the first floor east room that I call the study for his gluttonous feast.