November 17, 1943

68 years ago a young girl boarded a war time train filled with troops in Pueblo, Colorado and rode to Seattle, Washington to meet her own special soldier.  Because Lou was only 20 and Leona was still 17, she carried with her letters of permission from both of their mothers, just in case they got married before they reached the legal age.  

A few days after Leona's arrival in Seattle - and 3 days after her 18th birthday so she didn't have to use her letter of permission, they were married and began their long and happy life together. 

Leona - Lou
November 17, 1943

Happy Anniversary! 

You can read Lou's account of the wedding here 

and Leona's side of the story here. 

Merry Christmas - 1939

 To a young and starry eyed 14 year old Leona, Lou's Christmas gift of a cameo bracelet was thrilling.

 

But even more exciting was the accompanying card which gave her real status as his "girlfriend."

 

70 years of Christmas memories

50 Years Together

Jess (23 years) - Mable (19 years)
February 5, 1922

Lou's parents, Mable Elsa Davis and Jesse Llewellyn Butler were married on February 5, 1922 on the Davis family ranch near Haswell, Colorado. A Methodist minister, Reverend Warner, performed the ceremony and their friends Georgia Bryan and George Corwin were maid of honor and best man.

On February 5, 1972, they were honored with a 50th Anniversary Reception hosted by their sons and families.

Mable (69 years) - Jesse (73 years)
50 years of marriage

They were the featured story on the cover of the church bulletin
January 30, 1972

They were announced in the local newspaper
Pueblo Chieftain - January 31, 1972

Mable's sisters came for the party.
front: Mable - Jesse - Augusta
back: Rachel - Marjorie - Florence - Edna - Birdie Bell

In a shiny golden Hallmark book engraved with their names and wedding date (barely visible in the lower right corner), Mable carefully kept a record of all those who attended the party as well as all those who sent or brought gifts. "Golden" gifts were plentiful - including gold towels, gold smocked pillows, a gold bedspread and numerous commemorative gold 50th anniversary plates.

What a joyous day of celebration for Jesse and Mable.

War-time Wedding -- Part 2

After reading what Dad had written about their wedding, Mom filled in with a lot more details. Her memories add another perspective and give us "the rest of the story."

The way Lou used to tell this story [of our decision to get married] was that he didn’t have anything else to write about [in his letters] so he said, “If you could get up here – we’d get married!” Hell and high water couldn’t have kept me from getting “up there.” Lou’s parents wanted us to wait until after the war to get married, and his mother said, “You can’t marry my son.” That did it – I went home and started packing. I didn’t even shop; I just took what I had. Even my wedding dress, although special, was not new.

It must have been very hard for my mother to put me on that train. It was a few days before my 18th birthday. She would have been more concerned if she’d known I didn’t even have a seat on the train. It was full of mostly military men, and I sat on my suitcase. After we got out of the station an Army Lieutenant gave me his seat. I don’t know where he went for the rest of the trip, but I was truly grateful for that seat.

In Seattle there were two train stations – one on either side of the street, across from each other. My train went in one station, and Lou was waiting across the street in the other station! He finally came across the street and found me. I was beginning to wonder if he had stood me up!

We thought we would be getting married in the Bishop’s office, but Sylvia Koons found out we were getting married and had the wedding in her home. They invited several couples, made us a cake, and gave us a present. It was a lovely wedding. The tall sailor in the wedding picture is Chet Fields. He was Lou’s best man. He was Lou’s closest friend when they were serving on Bainbridge Island. I guess Sylvia was the matron of honor.

We found a room in the Enyert’s home after about a month in the hotel. Mrs. Enyert was firm and a little bit bossy, but very kind to us. I was just a young kid, barely 18, and I think she felt like she had to teach me a few things. On one occasion I dropped and broke three of her plates, and I had to wander around Seattle to find replacements. Looking for the right plates was a lot easier than telling her I had broken them!

The Enyert’s house was a great big old house. The basement was a huge cavernous cellar that was the size of the entire house. I remember it being a very scary place to me, with a lot of stuff sticking out from the walls. Unfortunately, the washing machine was down there, and I hated to have to go down to do the wash. Everybody else would be in the kitchen, just at the top of the basement stairs, but at 18 years old I was so afraid to go down into that cave that I literally shook! I couldn’t stand to stay down there for any amount of time, so I ran up and down those stairs a lot while doing the wash.

Jobs with the telephone company were considered “essential” during World War II, and as a result I was able to transfer from Pueblo to Seattle without difficulty. I was a switchboard operator at home, but when I transferred I was a file clerk in the office. The office I worked in was close to the pier where Lou came in from Bainbridge Island every evening. The window in my office had a great view of the hill he walked up, and I could watch for him. When he got off the ferry he would come by my office, and we’d ride the bus home together.

We had about four months together. They were good months, a little hard at times, but we were together. He was given a leave to take me home, and then he was sent to Adak for the duration of the war.

Leona - Lou
March 1944

And it was a lot harder to put him on the train that time!

War-time Wedding

Eleanor Leona Carpenter - Louis Edward Butler
married 17 November 1943
Seattle, Washington

When I was home on leave, between Radio School at Moscow, Idaho and advanced training at Bainbridge Island in the Puget sound off Seattle, Leona and I talked about getting married in December. But after I got to Bainbridge, we decided that if Leona could get up to Seattle, and that was no easy undertaking, that we would get married. So my mom wrote me a letter of permission to get married (since I was not yet 21!), and Leona brought it out with her on the train. The transportation situation was difficult; gas was rationed and the trains were crowded with both civilians and the military always trying to get someplace a long ways off. She ended up sitting on her suitcase part of the way.

Cutting the wedding cake

The Koons family - wedding hosts
and perhaps one of Lou's navy buddies

We were married on November 17, 1943, at the home of the Koons family that we met at the University Ward. We had dinner and a cake, and it was awfully nice of the Koons to make it so nice for us. Leona worked at the telephone company while we were in Seattle, having transferred from the telephone company in Pueblo where she had been working, so we managed to have enough money to live on. Housing was almost impossible to find because of all of the military and all of the shipyard workers and all of the aircraft workers, etc. We only had to stay in a hotel for a few days until we were lucky to just find a room in a private home. They also rented out a couple more rooms in the upstairs of their house, and we shared a bath with a couple of other couples. We had no facilities for eating, so we ate out when we first got the room.

We hadn’t been there long, before Mrs. Enyert (the landlady) told Leona we could use their kitchen for our evening meal. Knowing we had nothing and were very young, she felt sorry for us and was a help to us.

Gasoline ration stamps

At this time, gasoline was rationed as well as much of the food such as meat, sugar, etc. We didn’t have [ration] stamps yet and Mrs. Enyert told Leona that they had a grocery store were we could buy our groceries. She would give Leona stamps and she would tell her not to tell her husband that she gave them to us! Then we would go to their store and Mr. Enyert would come around and give us stamps on the sly which he would say that some customer gave him because they didn’t need them! He would always say for us not to tell his wife because she would not like it as it is really against the law. So we had more [ration] stamps than we could use.

Grocery ration stamps

After they had let us use the kitchen for a while, they suggested that we could stay down in the living room after supper if we would like. So we now had the use of the kitchen and the living room, plus she had lots of advice for Leona about how to cook! They were very nice to us and we appreciated it very much.

Most of the time I could get off of the base for the night, but it would mean riding a bus to the Sound, catching a ferry and riding for about 30 minutes, then getting off at the pier in Seattle and catching a bus to ride another 30 minutes or more to our apartment. Then in the early morning I would be back on the bus – ferry - bus and back on the base to study or stand watch for the day, and then start all over again after work. But it was worth it! We were young and had plenty of energy for the demanding schedule.

Lou and Leona
so young - but so in love!


65 years later - still so in love!

I consider it a privilege. . .

Tesi - Jim - Leona - Lou
November 7, 1975

Since Lou was serving as the Stake President of the Pueblo Stake, he had the authority to perform marriages. It was a special occasion for him to perform the marriage ceremony for Jim and Tesi.

November 7, 1975 – Jim and Theresa Ann Sandoval were married. I performed the ceremony with these words of introduction and then followed with a prayer and the traditional marriage ceremony.

“I consider it a privilege to conduct this ceremony for you.

"We believe marriage to be ordained by God, to help develop His attributes and that absolute loyalty to one another is essential.

"Most Latter-day Saint weddings are performed in temples, homes or chapels, with sealings to be performed in the temple as soon as possible.”

Soon after their wedding, Tesi was baptized, and in due time they were married in the Salt Lake Temple.

Della and Harker - 50 Years Together

ViAnna FiDella Shafer - Charles Harker Davis
50th Wedding Anniversary
October 30, 1939

In his personal history Norman E. Davis, their son, gives us a few details about the marriage of Harker and Della - Lou's maternal grandparents:

"Charles Harker Davis and Vienna Fidella Sheaffer (Shafer on their wedding certificate) were united in marriage October 30, 1889 by Michael Keinan, Justice of the Peace, and witnessed by her sister, Caroline Shaeffer and Mrs. Bell Herbert.

"Father was a cowboy at that time, working around Springer, New Mexico. After some time they decided to make their way to Pueblo, to work and make a home, to start life as a family."

These newspaper articles report some details of the celebration. Note that Charles and Louis Butler (grandsons of the couple) sang "Put on Your Old Grey Bonnet."

Unfortunately, the wish for "many more years of wedded bliss" was not to be. Harker passed away 10 months later in August, 1940.

Patiently Waiting

As we have read here, Lou joined the Navy in October of 1942 - which was Leona's senior year in high school. Given the length of their courtship and the fact that they were crazy about each other, there wasn't much question that they would be married, it was just a matter of when. So when Lou went off to Boot Camp, Leona enjoyed the activities of her last year in high school.

Page from Leona's high school yearbook - Senior Year

She sang with the Centennial High School Singers, and was a member of the elite Cecilian Choir.

Leona and Lou's brother, Chuck, dressed alike for the
senior class"Kids Day"


Leona - Chuck
May, 1943

Family helped fill the time while Lou was gone.

Leona - Charlotte

Eldon (Lou's brother) and Leona

But mostly I imagine she spent a lot of time writing letters, looking forward to the day they'd be together again, and wondering what their future looked like. And as we know now, that future was well worth the wait!

Will you be my Valentine?

February 14, 1940
A candy wrapper from Leona's first box of Valentine chocolates from Lou

Louis Butler
Leona Carpenter
1938 - It was during this year that I started seeing Leona Carpenter a lot at church and at her house on Sundays. Her Mom is a great cook and I can still remember the great breaded pork chops she used to fix! That year I bought her a white pair of ice skates for her birthday. It was a cold winter and we did get to go skating on the Mineral Palace Park Lake several times.




Louis Butler and Leona Carpenter 1939




Back to school (after Christmas break) and seeing Leona a lot during the rest of the winter and spring. When school was out I got a job with the Rainbo Bakery selling day old bread. All of the bread that was not sold was brought into the day-old store. Most of it was sold to farmers for their hogs, but most of it that I sold was not really stale, but the extra bread that was baked and then not needed for the route salesmen. Leona came over regularly to get bread, even though her dad was a baker!

Young love - 1939

Leona and I continued seeing each other when I was in high school. We went our separate ways for a while. Then after I had finished high school we started going together again.

Spring 1940
Leona (14 years old) and Lou (17 years) going to the Gold and Green Ball

March 4, 1983
Yes, I'll be your Valentine - - for all eternity!