Page 38 - Senior Link Magazine Winter 2019- Online Magazine
P. 38
Claymon Martha McCutcheon
High School Sweethearts/
Lifelong Partners
by Carla McCutcheon Lewis Mom’s father passed away
suddenly in May 1954 just two
laymon McCutcheon first weeks before she finished her
saw Martha Burke in church junior year. Mildred Burke loaded
Cin Sundown, Texas. He had up Mom and her two younger
gone to church with his aunt and brothers, and they moved to
uncle and saw her singing in the Corsicana to be near family. Mom
choir. They don’t remember if they started her senior year of high
actually met that day.
school in Corsicana. Dad drove 442
When they had their first date, it miles one way every few weeks to
was with their best friends. Quite go see her.
frequently, their dates consisted Mom had been holding off setting
of watching TV at Dad’s house or a wedding date until after she
going to the movies in Levelland. graduated high school. He had
Mom’s mother did not want her been asking her to set a date for
riding in the car with him, so as she several months, and finally, on one
walked home from school each day, of the weekends he was there, he
he drove very slowly on the wrong said that if she didn’t set a date,
side of the road so he could talk to he was not going to come back. two brothers) and the preacher and
her while she walked. Oncoming They got their blood tests on the his wife. The newlyweds traveled
cars would just swerve around him next Monday, and the wedding back to Sundown that night, taking
as he drove the half block it took to was set for Wednesday, June 15. his mother with them as Dad had
walk home.
Dad had brought his mother with to go to work the next day. He
The night he asked her to marry him to visit her cousin, so she was didn’t make it; he was too tired after
him, they had been to the movies, already in Corsicana. They got driving all night to get home.
and he stopped in the middle of the married in the preacher’s living They stayed a few weeks with his
road to ask her. Obviously, she said room, with eight people present. mother in Sundown but soon got
yes! They were engaged on August Mom’s friend JoAnn was Maid a temporary place of their own,
27, 1953. Dad had graduated high of Honor, and her uncle Eugene staying in the back of a closed
school in May, and Mom was about was Best Man. The other guests washeteria. It was fixed up really
to go into her junior year of high were Mary McCutcheon (Dad’s nice, and Mom teases she could
school. mother), Mildred Burke, (Mom’s choose any washer she wanted to do
mother), Ken and Archie, (Mom’s
the laundry. They soon moved to
38 Lubbock Senior Link
