This is the announcement of our engagement in the paper published in The Dalles.
Karen lived with an older couple in Portland that summer, the ones who had housed me while I was interning at Maplewood Friends Church during the school year. She stayed with them until our wedding. I got an apartment in married student housing at George Fox.
Karen was working at a Christian book warehouse in Portland, packing books into boxes for shipment to various Christian bookstores. I got a job with a professor at George Fox, producing slides for him which he used as part of an academic research project that he was pursuing. When school started I went back to work in the audiovisual department with Bob Gilmore.
After our June visit to Whittier, the news of our engagement went public. The wedding was planned for Dec. 17 in The Dalles, which was the Sunday after school was out at George Fox. That gave us two weeks for a honeymoon trip down through California to have Christmas with the family in Whittier before I had to be back in school.
On returning to Oregon that summer we found that the Suttons, Karen’s parents, were moving. She’d spent her whole life before college at house on W. 10th St. in The Dalles. Her father was skilled at building, and had made extensive additions to the house through the years. But her mother had a dream: to live in a log cabin on a big piece of property.
They bought 40 acres in the hills south of The Dalles, out of town on Browns Creek Road. Francis, Karen’s dad, purchased a cedar log house “kit” and they spent that summer putting it together. As the future son-in-law I was obligated to help out, despite the fact that I had never been involved with any home improvement projects more complex than changing a light bulb.
It was over 100° in The Dalles on that July weekend when Karen and I went up there to help out. The home site was full of people who were helping out, people who seemed to know what they were doing. I was hopelessly lost, but they found a spot for me: on top of the newly-finished house wall, supporting one end of a huge beam while they lowered it into place.
The house was finished to the point where the Suttons could move in, and it was a beautiful house. But Esther Sutton, Karen’s mother, was able to enjoy it for only a few years before she passed away in 1975 at the age of 59.
The Suttons’ log home near The Dalles, almost finished. It was on a slope and had a “daylight” basement that was not built from logs. Note the beautiful stone chimney – it made for a beautiful fireplace inside.
The Whittier, California paper combined four engagement announcements into one article.
Dear Karen and David,
I’m not good at expressing my feelings in words but I feel very deeply – I was so happy to be able to be with you Sunday evening and believing in heredity I could see many things of my Dad in David. Dad was hoping Dick would be a minister, so I kept thinking how happy he would be if he knew of your choice in your life work. When you led out in song my tears that came so easy. I couldn’t keep back – your voice is better trained but Dad so often lead with a song that just fit. And Karen I was impressed with how well you are able to help. You will make a great team. I have seen how in many ways Karen would be just right but until Sunday evening I didn’t realize she could take so much part in the meeting. Hearing Gary Stratman in the morning and you in the evening my spirit was lifted in thanks for such wonderful young people to carry on. I feel you will both bed a help to Sue and she needs you. As I was growing up I complained of unkind criticism but later realized how I was privileged to be a P.K. (preacher’s kid).
With Love and Pride to be – Aunt
At some point during our engagement we received the above letter from Aunt. I do not remember the Sunday evening service that she refers to. But the letter was a great encouragement to us.
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