Grandma tells about her courting and engagement with my Grandfather in an oral history recorded by Michael Eckersley in 1976:
"While I was going to high school a young man, George Albert Compton came from Morgan Utah to work at the railroad here in Ogden. And he boarded at the home of Caroline Wiggins, who was a widow at this time and was running a boarding house. And we were introduced to each other and saw each other back and forth in the neighborhood there, and I think we were encouraged a little bit by some of the people in the boarding house who kind of kidded and said, "Why don’t you take Margaret out on a date?" I was real young at the time-- I think I was only about fifteen. He did, he invited me to go to a show, and I kind of believe we went to a carnival or something like that. But my Aunt would always say yes, I could go, and sometimes I’d question. I’d look at her, and I’d say "You’d just let me go anywhere with Mr. Compton wouldn’t you?" and she says, "Well I think he’s a very fine young man."
And so, anyhow, we went together for years-- in the neighborhood of about three years-- but my Aunt passed away January 1915, and that was just a few months after I had turned seventeen. And at that time, George received a call to go on a mission. I thought how wonderful it would be if I could go with George on his mission, and somehow they found out that President Rossiter’s wife was alone, more or less, down there in the islands and needed a companion, and so I received a call to go on a mission.
But during this time, my Father had insisted on me coming up to his home at 28th and just about Jefferson and live with he, his wife, and his family. He and his second wife had five children, a boy and four girls. And so I moved up into my father’s home, and George and I were still keeping company.
And this one particular holiday, I think it was Labor Day, and I was supposed to stay home and get lunch for Dad, my Father, because he was going to be in town and would be coming home about lunchtime. And George and I had decided to go somewhere on a date--I don’t remember just where.
But anyhow, when George arrived right there at my Father’s home the same time my Father did, they both walked into the house at the same time and stood there in the front room. And George had been telling me "When will your Father be home so I can ask him if you can go on a mission with me-- if we can be married we can go on our mission." And I said, I kept telling George, I says "I know very well he won’t consent, because he’ll think I’m far too young." And he says, "Well maybe you’re wrong."
But so, anyhow, when my father and George walked in there together, why, they shook hands, and George got the courage up to say "Well Mr. Mattson, what would you think if I asked you, if we--Margaret and I could be married, and she could go on a mission with me down to the Islands to Tahiti?" And my Father looked at him, very pleasantly, and smiled, and said, "I think that would be wonderful!" and I was standing there just ready to go right through the floor, because I didn’t have any idea that he would say yes. And do you know what his answer, his remark was? He says "If you think for one minute that you’re going to go on your mission and leave her here bawling her eyes out because you’ve gone away, I just... that can’t be."
So that was my experience of being proposed to, and being accepted by my Father. Anyhow, then we made our preparations to be married.
Margaret' wedding picture, September 1915.
George Albert Compton, wedding picture, 1915
[I don't know why my grandparents didn't have a picture of the two of them together when they got married. If anyone knows of one, send it to me and I will add it to this blog.]
We were married on the 29th of September 1915. And we had lots of parties and showers and activities-- getting everything ready for our mission. And we left Ogden, October the 6th, 1915 and we had a lot of friends to just see us off and there was plenty of rice thrown on us. It was a very exciting time and besides, George’s Mother and Father, David and Mamie and my Step-Mother. There were many, many other friends who saw us off.
George A. Compton and myself were married September the 29th 1915 and David O. Mckay married us and he set us apart for the mission and married us the same day in the Salt Lake Temple. And Mamie and David Evans were with us in the Salt Lake Temple, and it was a very wonderful day-- very spiritual, and of course we were all excited about our marriage and going to the Tahitian Islands on our mission.
We left Ogden, October the seventh, 1915, and we had lots of friends and relatives to bid us goodbye, and it was the first time either George or myself had slept in a Pullman car.
When we arrived in San Francisco, we were met by some of our folks, and some of the girls that I was raised with, and while we were there in Frisco, in the few days we went to the 1915 Worlds’ Fair, and we took a lot of side trips and tours and had a very enjoyable time there."
[I don't have any pictures of them on their honeymoon, but I will have some marvelous pictures of them on their mission in Tahiti, so stay tuned.]
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