July 15, 2006
Betty & Jim

Their Story

(Grandma and Grandpa Plunkett)

        I met Jim in the summer of 1947 at Pine Haven Christian Service camp in northern Minnesota. I and another gal were there for a week after we had finished teaching several Vacation Bible School in the churches in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa. I had finished my freshman year at Minnesota Bible College. Jim was there after finishing his senior year in high school and was headed to M.B.C. in the fall. During the week, I "hung out" with a guy named Calvin and Jim "hung out" with a girl named Susy. (Those two eventually married too.) At the end of the week of camp, my Dad came to get my friend and me to take us back to Minneapolis. Jim asked if he could ride that far since he did not have a way back home to Iowa. My Dad said "yes", but I thought he had a lot of nerve and I was not impressed.
        Jim did start Bible College that fall, but we did not pay that much attention until March when we started "dating". That summer Jim went back home and helped with the farm and I spent another summer teaching Vacation Bible School as I did the summer before. When we got back to school in the fall we got jobs and both ended up working at a 14-stool diner. I mostly waited on the customers, but we both did some cooking and cleaning up.
        On Sunday morning, October 3, we went on a picnic for breakfast down by the river. I think we even cooked something. Anyway, it was fun. On the way back up the hill from the river, Jim chased me and gave me my engagement ring. (You can tell that he is not all that romantic, but it worked for us). We got back to our rooms in time to get ready for church and the thing I remember most about that morning that one fellow said to Jim "well, another Indian bit the dust".
        As I said we both worked at a diner and the boss didn't know we were engaged to each other--if he had, we probably wouldn't have both been able to work there. We served lots of students from the University of Minnesota and especially football players. Although, we had to pay a good bit of our way through school that year, we were also able to save $90 in dimes for our honeymoon.
        We had planned to be married in December of 1949, then moved it up to August and then finally moved it to June because Jim had been hired as a minister for the summer at two very small churches in northern Michigan and we thought that would be a nice extended honeymoon. Who was to know that where we were to live had outside bathroom facilities and an old iron stove to cook on.

-Betty Plunkett