In the winter of 1961 and 1962, the Wendell Holmes and Beth Packard Walker family moved to Weiser, Idaho. At this time, my family, the Glen and Verla Woodbury Kofoed family lived in New Plymouth, Idaho. Both of these small farming communities were part of the Weiser, Idaho Stake and were located about 30 miles apart. Lary was serving a mission in Norway and Marianne was a senior at New Plymouth High School. In Mid July, of 1962, Lary came home from his Mission to Norway after serving an honorable mission of 2 1/2 years. Marianne graduated from New Plymouth High School in May and was preparing to attend B.Y.U. in the fall of 1962.
Needless to say, Marianne was aware of the new family in the Stake and made it a point to get to know as many of the family as possible. The following is told by Marianne.
Two of the High School children , of the Wendell & Beth Walker family, LeeRen and Daleen were both juniors at Weiser High. Because, LeeRen, and Daleen and I were all members of the All State Choir held In Boise, Idaho , the spring of 1962, we got to know each other pretty well during the few days we were together. When B.Y.U. was finished in the spring of 1962, Wendell and Carvel, Lary’s brothers, came home for the summer. I met Carvel and Wendell at the Stake dance in Weiser. It was exciting to have some new handsome young men from a good family move into the Stake. One of my goals was to get to know the family better! At that time, there were pictures of the missionaries serving missions on the bulletin board in the foyer of the Weiser Chapel. I remember seeing Lary’s picture and hoping to meet him when he came home. The hope was that if I got to know Wendell and Carvel, and already knew LeeRen and Daleen, that I would get to know Lary as well. That summer I accepted a ride to a Young Adult dance in Emmett , Idaho with Wendell Walker the oldest of the new Walker family and Wilma George, a girl who had lived in New Plymouth ward and recently moved to Weiser. We rode together to the dance. That was a start!!
The first part of August, just before leaving for B.Y.U. there was a Young Adult fireside in the New Plymouth Ward building. Because at that time, Sacrament meeting was held in the evenings and the firesides were after Sacrament meeting, it made the fireside start about 9:00 pm. Because Weiser was 1/2 hour away from New Plymouth, Lary and Wendell were a little late. They arrived just after I had finished singing a solo at the fireside.
It was probably a good thing they were late or I may have forgotten the words. Now I can’t remember what I sang anyway. They sat right behind me and Wendell had already told Lary about “this girl in the New Plymouth ward”. When they sat down behind me, Wendell told Lary that I was the girl in front of them. Lary says that he said “she looks good from this side”. This night was the first time that I saw Lary and I was definitely interested in getting to know him better. My first impressions were that he was good looking, had served an honorable mission and came from a good family. What else could a girl want? All I had to do now was to get him to think the same thing about me. Lary and I talked for a while after the fireside in the Cultural Hall as we were leaving the building. I can still remember exactly where we stood in the center of the gym and how he blushed often while we were talking. For some reason, he gave me a penny and we talked about our plans to attend B.Y.U. in a few weeks.
We also saw each other at a Young Adult Stake dance in Emmett and danced quite a few times. After the dance was over, Lary went out to go home and his brother Wendell and Cousin, Rex Walker, talked him into coming back inside and asking me to ride home with them because I lived on their way home in New Plymouth on Elgin road. He was pretty shy about it all, but I was very happy and excited that had asked me!
We did not see each other again until we went to BYU. I was getting to know my way around and decided to walk past the Botany pond on my way home from campus because I lived on 6th North from BY High School which has been renovated into a Public Library. After crossing 8th North, I was about in the middle of the first block east and a car slowed down and tried to get my attention. I was a small town girl and had hardly been out of Idaho and was not about to look when someone called to me from the street! When they persisted, I was unsure if I should even look to see who was in the car. But, they persisted and finally I recognized Lary. He was with his Uncle Bernie Packard who was his same age. They asked me if I wanted a ride home and since I did know Lary, I accepted. Lary asked me for our first real date! We went to a dance at the tennis courts and had a great time. (Sock Hop) It was a little cool in the evening and he shared his white hand knit Norwegian sweater with me. We dated quite a bit fall semester and were in the BYU Oratorio Choir together. One evening during football season, we double dated with Lary’s Uncle Bernie and his date Sarah Hayes to the B.Y.U./University Utah game. Since the game was in Salt Lake, we had a long ride home in the back seat! Well, Lary finally got up enough nerve to kiss me. From then on, I had my heart set on marrying him. Spring semester we dated a lot and got to know each other more. I did have some competition at first with some of his “old girlfriends” from before his mission. Occasionally he would call me the wrong name accidently! That let me know he was not just dating me. Lary tried to tell me that he was just testing to see how I reacted ?
I finally prevailed and we were engaged on March 2nd 1963. I was hoping to be engaged before the semester was over! Lary was good at keeping secrets. The night we were engaged, he told me that there were some people from Norway that he knew from his mission that he wanted to meet on Temple Square. After we arrived, we were waiting for them (the people never came!) and we started looking at the different areas of the Salt Lake Temple grounds. It was so beautiful! As we stood by a little log cabin that was on the south side of the Temple, he said that he would like to take me to the temple some day. I thought he was getting a little ahead of himself, however, he did have a ring in his pocket and formally proposed to me. I said yes and he put the ring on my finger. Then, we went to the Empire Room on the top floor of the Hotel Utah for dinner. We were married on July 23, 1963 in the Idaho Falls Temple—- and have lived happily ever after!! This narrative is according to Marianne’s memory.
According to Lary’s memory there are a few additions!
