After the Vietnam War, I went to the College of Southern Utah, known today as Southern Utah University. I changed my major to Social Work and enjoyed my classes much more, and as a result, I got better grades. Cedar City is where I met my future wife Alveta. She was working as a nurse at the hospital. I met and dated Alveta for about six weeks and then proposed to her. She told me she was still in love with her old boyfriend, so instead of buying a ring with the money I had saved, I bought an engine for my 62 Chevy.
At this time, I decided to move home and build a dairy with my brother Don, so I didn’t go back to school after that. In January, my cousin Evan Brown was getting married in Hurricane. I wanted to see him get married, so I decided to go to his wedding with Barbara and Virginia. After the wedding was over Barbara and Virginia insisted that we go to Cedar City. Since I was in Cedar City, I decided to see Alveta while I was there. The next day was Sunday, I knew what time her ward was, so I decided to attend church in her ward. This way, I would have an excuse to see her. But I was disappointed when I went and could not see her, at this time I decided to leave, and she came running into church late. After Sacrament meeting, I tracked her down. We decided that we wanted to spend more time together since we were enjoying being together, later that night we went to a fireside. Joseph Fielding Smith was the speaker and at that time was an apostle. After the fireside, she told me that she would be moving back to Oklahoma. I was very disappointed that she would be moving so far away and thought this was the end for us. I went home and dated a few girls, but all I could do was think about Alveta. One night I felt that I should call her up and ask her to Prom. She said she would come to Blanding and go to Prom with me on her way to Oklahoma. What she did not realize at that time was that Blanding is not on your way to anywhere, let alone Oklahoma. We went to the Prom together and had such a great time. Before she left, I proposed one more time, and this time she said yes!!
We set our wedding date to June, but she wanted me to go out first and meet her mom and dad. The first time I met Alveta’s parents, I drove down to Oklahoma. Driving into Yukon, it was raining very hard. I had never seen rain like this in Utah. It felt like the whole sky was falling. Grandpa Lee didn’t like me very well at first. Just a side note, I found out later that he was going to run me off if I showed up in a black hat and black suit and had other wives. However, when he saw that I looked normal, he warmed up to me. I liked grandma Lee, from the very start she was very nice to me and cooked so much good food. I enjoyed my visit with Alveta’s family and felt like I belonged. The engagement lasted longer than planned because I was called back into the reserves on July 6th, 1970, our wedding plans were put on hold at this time. I went to California for my two weeks of reserve and flew from there to Oklahoma. Richard Alveta’s brother picked me up from the airport. I spent a week there and got to know Alveta’s parents even better. I felt really good about the family I would be marrying into and already loved them a lot. We were able to set a new date to get married on August 13, and we wanted to be sealed in the Manti Temple. This date was also Grandpa and Grandma Lee’s anniversary and Grandpa Brown’s Birthday. Grandpa and Grandma Lee drove to Manti with us. They met us outside of the temple. We had our wedding luncheon in the cafeteria of the Manti temple. Grandpa and Grandma Lee were able to go in for the wedding luncheon. Next, we drove to Blanding and had our reception. I will always look back on this day and cherish it what a wonderful day it was.
