November 11, 2019 - Back in 1957, I was student Pastor of he Liberty Hill Baptist Church in San Augustine, Texas. County Clerk Cecil Murphy called me one day asking if I had time to perform a wedding “for a young couple.” I told him I would and minutes later a young man came to the door. When I asked where he wanted to be married, he replied, “Oh, I’m already married.” “The couple to be married is too old to get out and want to be married in the car.”
I walked to the car, turned backwards in the front seat, and read the ceremony. When it came time to kiss the bride, they just hugged each other tightly and giggled. The bride’s name was Ida Luke and she was 92 years old. The groom (can’t remember his name) was a 93 year old retired store owner from Nacogdoches.
I’m 86 years old now and have done hundreds of wedding ceremonies. I’ve married them in houses, studies, in court houses, on creek banks, in parks, in my gun shop and a myriad of other places, but this was the oldest couple I ever married and my only ceremony in a car.
Cecil told me the next Sunday at Church, “Bother Doug, you did their ceremony in a car…but that marriage was made in heaven.”
