Yes, this is a photo of me and my fiancé. We never married of course. We were engaged for just a short time. Our marriage was arranged, as indeed they were for many back then. Arranged marriages seemed to work well enough. You’d fall in love over time without usually having to spend energy on the lovey-dovey stage.
Hector and I had met just the twice, and he was to visit me again. In those days it took two days to travel from where he lived to my village. He had to catch a number of trains and a ferry. And arrive he did! I had spent all day perfecting my looks and hair. It wasn’t so much vanity, as nerves. One strives to look as elegant as possible for these pre-arranged liaisons.
Hector and I walked to the village hall where the dance was to be held. He was very handsome, and so very courteous and polite. As soon as we walked in the hall he said, “Whose that?” and I said “That’s Mabel Hussleworth. She’s engaged to Anton Gorinski.”
The announcement of her engagement didn’t seem to register. He danced with Mabel all night, and I, a wall flower for but a short time, danced the rest of the night away with Mabel’s fiancé, Anton. In fact, we have danced the rest of our lives away, and coming next Friday we will have been married for thirty-nine years.
Mabel and Hector tied the knot as well. I’ve kept the engagement photograph of me and Hector as a reminder of how lucky I was to have escaped getting married to a serial wife basher. Mabel I believe is in a wheelchair, and he murdered his second wife.