Courtship?

Mary Maud Wilson first met her future mother-in-law when she was in her teens. Mary, her Mother, and her sister Betty kept a 1/4 acre of beans from which they picked beans every other week all summer. Everyone in town would take their beans to Mary D. (May) Asay's home to be weighed before they were sold to the local cannery (which bought them by the pound). Maurice and Mary did not connect at that time. He thinks that he was probably out in the hills at the time herding cows. Mary knew Orvin Asay (Maurice's older brother) before Maurice. She thought he was very nice because when she would see him around town he greeted her with a friendly hello, something other boys older than her would not do. She felt like the other's thought of her as a little kid.





Maurice Earl Asay knew who Annie Wilson (his future mother-in-law) was but he didn't every really meet her until he was engaged to her daughter. He says that everyone in town knew who she was. It was common to see her riding her bike all over town.





Both of them dated a few other people before they got together but no-one serious to either of them. Maurice received 3 marriage proposals while he was in the mission field. The mother of one of the boys Mary had dated was very disappointed when Mary and Maurice got together because she had hoped that Mary would marry her son.

Shortly after returning from the war (WWII) Maurice went one night to the movies. On the way out of the theater he met up with a friend and they ran into Mary and a friend that she worked with at the hospital. The four of them went to the drug store for a soda and Maurice walked Mary home asking her out for the next night. He took her to his mother's home to watch slides. They went out the next day and on that date he asked her to marry him. They went downtown to the jewelry store where Mary picked out the ring she wanted. Maurice went in the next day and bought it. (paid for in full from his checking account - he had a healthy balance from his army wages)

Mary got a ride to Billings to see her mother who was running the 'Clark Hotel'. She told her mother that she needed to find a wedding dress. Annie said that she knew that she was seeing someone but thought it was too soon. Maurice said his mother said the same thing.

Orvin told them that they could borrow his car if they would buy new tires for it. On a trip to Billings they stopped in Bridger for gas and found 2 tires. Then they found two others at a station in Lovell.

So two weeks later with their borrowed car and with Annie Wilson along as chaperon they drove to Salt Lake for their wedding in the Salt Lake City Temple. They stopped by Maurice's uncle home while in Salt Lake. His uncle asked him how he was making out. His uncle explained that when he had gotten married he had to borrow $50 from the bank for the trip to Salt Lake. The uncle was somewhat surprised to hear that he had written a check for $300 to pay for his wedding trip. On the way back Annie got a kick out of Maurice as he burst into joyous song in Spanish.

About a month later the biggest town gossip approached Mary at the grocery store and asked how her 'boyfriend' was. Mary said, "Do you mean my husband." The lady rushed off to find out from Maurice's sister when they had gotten married so that she could put it on her calendar.