April 15, 1972

On a spring day forty years ago, I took my longest airplane ride to date. A few hops to New Jersey, but this day, we were winging it to Kansas for my sister's wedding. We had been waiting a long time for this. Diane finally said yes to Herman!
We had a stop over at O'Hare airport in Chicago. I wore a blue body suit, short sleeve ribbed turtle neck with a red, white and blue skort and matching poncho. I'm sure I had navy blue knee socks and loafers, too. People dressed to travel back then.
We stayed at the air force base in Wichita. It was a plain room is about all I can remember. Diane's house that she rented with four other young women was fantastic. A sunken living room, a den, a bedroom on the landing to the rest of the house, a large kitchen that I believe was pink, green and yellow, a sun room, I think, filled this large Tudor on Kellogg Ave. It has since been torn down.
I loved getting ready for the wedding in these rooms with the twenty-something ladies, Leah, Mary and Diane, listening to Horse with No Name, and other songs on the radio. Diane's bed was just a mattress on the floor, her bookshelf, bricks and slabs of wood. Great homemade art filled the walls. Mary fixed my hair with a slight pouf and a single braid against the rest of my hair flowing down. We tried to get it that way a week later and were unable.
The wedding was planned in a hurry as Herman, still in the Air Force, gave Diane a limited time frame. Also gave the parents a short time, too. Mr. Galicia and my dad sat one night calling hall after hall to hold the reception back here. Finally, they settled on the WM Presbyterian Church Fellowship Hall, with Carrie Silliman playing the organ. It included a meal, as well.
The ceremony took place at the base chapel. In one picture after the vows, my dad has the best grinning smile on his face. He loved when the girls were married, it seemed. I know how happy he was when I married ten years later.
Diane's friend, Nancy DeVault's nephew, Homer, was to be my partner. They were the family from Pratt, Kansas that we had stayed with different times. But Homer didn't show.
The large house on Kellogg Ave. held the reception. The punch, the girls made in a large clean garbage pail. This was placed in the huge punch bowl for the drinking guests. A small punch bowl held non-alcoholic drink for Mom, Dad and I, plus a few others.
Another picture I liked of the reception is of me sitting on the stairs talking to a girl, Cindy, that I met there. I believe her mother worked with Diane at the school where she taught. Cindy had long brown hair, wore a lavender dress and we hit it off. We wrote for years.
This reception had the cross section of interesting people from the seventies, professional to hippies. All, Diane had befriended. I had a great time. Plus, I got a doll out of it. Peace, a black hair, round sweet face in blue jeans and long sleeve T-shirt and hat. She was smaller than a Barbie, maybe nine or ten inches.
I had a crush on the photographer, who I believed also had a crush on Diane. But this wedding was like a dream come true. We all loved Herman so much and truly wanted them to be together. They fit and still do. Happy 40th Wedding Anniversary.