"Young Love" Proved to be
"The Real Thing" in Yantis

 

from Leona Hyde Cerretani

 

 

Gene Ray and Margaret Stinnett Hyde on their
wedding day, on April 1960. She wore the dress she
had planned to wear to the prom, and added a veil.

 

 

I am writing to you about my parents, Gene Ray and Margaret Hyde.  They met in the year of 1957.  Although their families lived just down the road from each other in Yantis, Texas, Gene and Margaret had never met.  My Dad was 5 years older than my mother and just saw her as a mere child when he left to join the US Navy at the age of 17.  When he came home on leave, Gene Ray visited Margaret’s parents (C.H. and Dorothy Stinnett) and that’s when he noticed her.  She was grown up and very pretty, he thought. 

Gene Ray asked Margaret’s parents if he could take her to the movies.  They agreed as long as he would also take along Margaret’s younger sister, Elaine, because they felt like Margaret, at the age of 15 was too young to go out with this man alone.  My mother thought that Gene Ray was the most handsome man she’d ever met and couldn’t believe that he was asking her on a date.  They enjoyed the date and when Gene got ready to go back to California, they agreed to write to each other, (they still have most of the letters). 

 

 

 

The next time Gene Ray came home on leave, he gave her his senior ring and told her when he came home the next time, he would replace it with an engagement ring.  Margaret’s parents would not let her get married until she was 17.  So, on April 2, 1960 the day after my mother turned 17, my parents were married in Yantis, Texas. 

50 years later they are still happily married with 3 children, Dennis Ray Hyde, Kathleen Bailey and Leona Cerretani.  They have 6 grandchildren, Daniel and Lucas Cerretani, Sara and Matthew Bailey and Saffron and Deanna Hyde.

 

Editor's Note: Leona included that Gene Ray and Margaret still have those love letters,
written 50 years ago, as their relationship began.

 

Gene Ray and Margaret Stinnett Hyde will celebrate their
50th Wedding Anniversary in April 2010.

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