Marshall &Kay Family Histories
Yvonne's Dating
& Future Husband
I was 18, when I really decided to make a decision about the gospel, about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I started going back to church, and that's when I really did gain a whole testimony. And it just so happened that during this period, that when I was getting to go back to church and beginning to read the Book of Mormon (not a whole lot but just a little bit) then I met dad(B. Vaughn Marshall). He had just gotten out of the navy and I met him at Christmas time. And that's when we started going together. I met him at church, as we were decorating the Christmas tree at one of these young adult dances. We were supposed to be decorating the Christmas tree and decorating the cultural hall for a dance. It was something they made up for the young adults. I was in San Francisco going to nursing school and I would come home on the weekends. We lived in an area where we lived in the Palo Alto Ward, Menlo Park Ward hadn't been formed yet. So that's where I would go on the weekends, to the Palo Alto Ward. And so that's where I met dad. His family had been in the Palo Alto Ward for a number of years.
That wouldn't have happened, I guess if I hadn't gotten interested in the church at that time. So I've always been really grateful that I did. And so we both started reading the Book of Mormon again. I'm sure he had read it a number of times before I had read it, but we had this little challenge, especially after we knew he was going to go on a mission, we gave ourselves this challenge that we had to be reading the Book of Mormon together.
Our Dating
Some of our grandchildren have asked me what sort of things we did on our dates so I thought I’d share something about that also. When I was at home on the weekends I would often go watch him work. Vaughn worked for his dad in the “tree business”. Besides working for the City of Palo Alto, his dad had started a business on the side. He called it his tree business. He would contract with people to clear certain sections of their land by cutting down and clearing away the trees. This was hard work but Bill apparently had good experience doing this in his younger years in Utah. It was interesting and fun for me to watch them. Vaughn was a hard worker. It always amazed me that he could take down and cut up trees hour after hour. I was impressed with his physical strength. He may not have been very tall but he was very strong. I learned many things about him by watching him. He didn’t turn away from hard work. He never seemed to be looking for ways to sidetrack what needed to be done. He was respectful of his father. I’m sure there were times he did not agree with his dad, but I never saw him act in a disrespectful way. I learned that he was a loyal person, someone who could be counted on. I considered these times together part of our dating times. I would often be invited to have dinner at his house and we would just hang out there. Sometimes we’d go to a movie. When I had to stay at the hospital on the weekends, Vaughn would come up when I got off duty, and we’d go to the beach, ride the cable cars, go to Fisherman’s Warf or China Town --- just do stuff like that. The last few months before he left on his mission (for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) we spent a lot of time reading the scriptures. That kept us” safe” and we needed that extra strength because it was hard to think of being apart for so long.
Early in our dating Vaughn told me about his plans to go on a mission for the LDS Church. By the time we had been dating for six months we were talking about marriage. We both knew that was the direction we wanted to go. For a very brief period we talked about his not going and just getting married instead. I think that lasted about a week. He was committed to a mission and I was committed to support him. We had met just as 1950 started and he left on his mission in Jan of 1951. During that year he had been attending Stanford University. He had planned to get a year of schooling before he left. By attending summer quarter he managed to get his full year in. I noticed on his transcript from Stanford he was in the ‘ advanced standing’ category. As the time drew near to submit his ‘papers’ he became very concerned. The government had begun to severely limit the number of young men that could be called on missions. The Korean War was over but there was a great deal of unrest throughout that area of Asia. The government wanted these young men to be available. I remember that Vaughn and I and his family prayed that he would be able to go. He had to get an “exemption” from the government before he could submit his mission papers. He was very blessed and received an exemption. One of his good friends in his Ward was not able to go on a mission for that reason.
Vaughn and I gave each other special pictures that we’d had taken of ourselves for Christmas presents that year. They are the one’s framed and sitting in the bedroom. Vaughn used the same picture to put on his handouts for his “Farewell”. He’s very good looking in it of course. He had grown a nice looking mustache and, guess what? The first missionary sacrifice was now required. He was told that he had to remove the mustache. He didn’t like giving it up but he did as he was asked. It was a nice Farewell and Vaughn gave a very good talk.
Everything happened so fast ---the whole time frame went like this:
Nov 22,1950 He was interviewed by Spencer W. Kimball
Jan 8,1951 He received his formal mission call to the Central States Mission
Jan 19, 1951 He had his Farewell
Jan 21 He left on the train from San Francisco
Jan 22,1951 Arrived in the mission home in Salt Lake City
Feb 2, 1951 Arrived by train at Independence, Mo.
Where he received his further assignments in the mission home there.
from
B. VAUGHN MARSHALL
1953 - 1954
written by
Yvonne KAY Marshall
Before Vaughn returned home from his mission, my father had made arrangements for him to apply for work at Southern Pacific Railroad, which was where my father worked. He had contacted Vaughn earlier to see if he wanted him to do that. Jobs were not that easy to find and everyone knew that it was important to Vaughn to work as much as possible before going back to school, which he planned to do in the fall. Vaughn said yes to my father, to go ahead and make arrangements for the application. It turned out that he would be hired within two weeks of returning home. That was good, but once he started working he would not have any time off until it was time to quit and start school. That left us with a difficult decision to make about when to get married. We either had to be married very soon or wait until September just before school started. From February until September seemed like a very long time especially after waiting two years. So we decided to be married within ten days of his return. We announced our plans to our parents and, after getting over the surprise they were all very wonderful helping us to pull the whole thing together. The Lord was with us all the way.