00:00 – Tom Dent interviews Jean Young. She talks about meeting Andrew Young in Marion, AL. Her mother had told her about the young minister who would be there that summer and Jean volunteered to help out. She met him on her mother’s birthday, June 21. They drove to Tuskegee to visit her brother. They talked in the car and immediately hit it off as friends. 02:20 – She was not immediately impressed with his looks. She thought he was the “collegiate type.” There was no definite date when they decided to get married. When the summer was over, she was going back to Manchester and he was going back to Hartford. They wrote. He suggested she come to Hartford, CT, but she wanted to finish college at Manchester first. 05:00 – The next summer, they traveled to Europe together. Young was working in Ried, Austria and Jean was in Linz. They traveled after their work was done. Jean had gotten a fellowship and he joined her. Jean’s sister Norma was in Berlin and she joined them. When their travels were done, they went back to school and made plans to see each other at Christmas, when he gave her a ring. 07:00 – They took it for granted that they would get married after she graduated. Their mothers made the wedding plans. Her mother and sister and others painted the church in Marion. They married June 7, 1954 on a hot day. They were nervous about whether they were making the right decision. 09:45 – Her sister Cora was the matron of honor, and other good friends participated in the wedding. Tom Dent was Young’s best man. They wanted to be married in a regular church service by Reverend Nicholas Hood. The family steered them toward a stand-alone wedding. 11:15 – They had a reception afterward at her mother’s house and then drove to New Orleans. They were all stopped outside Purvis, MS when a speeding car tried to pass the wedding procession. Her white friends from Indiana were told to go on. Young’s Uncle Walt suggested they go ahead down the road and wait for them because the police might be harder on them if they realized it was an integrated party. There was a $17.75 fine per car and the judge threatened to lock them up. After they paid, they were let go. They arrived in New Orleans later that afternoon and his parents had a reception for them there. 15:30 – They split up the wedding and reception so that Young’s family’s New Orleans friends could participate. Afterwards, they drove out to Uncle Walt’s cabin in Slidell for their honeymoon. They’re friends came out to visit them the next day. 18:00 – After they were married they went to Kings Mountain, NC. Then Young was assigned to Evergreen Congregational Church in Beachton, GA and Thomasville. They went back to Hartford that fall for him to finish his degree. Jean taught there from September to January, and then they returned to Thomasville and she became pregnant with Andrea. 19:30 – Discussion of Young’s decision to go into the ministry. Jean met him as a minister. He was thinking seriously about becoming an overseas missionary in Angola. Jean felt positively about it. The Church of the Brethren she went to at Manchester was also very idealistic. They had both applied to the Board of Overseas Missions of the Congregational Church to go to Angola. It was not until they were married that the board realized they were marrying each other. The applications were rejected. 23:40 – Dent asks about Hartford. Young earned his degree midyear, so there was no particular celebration. They lived in the dormitories. It was Jean’s first year teaching. She taught third grade at Arsenal School. Young took care of the housekeeping. 26:00 – Young’s friends would burst into the apartment. Bob Polk, [Graham Stevens?], David Sobrepena, Graham Leonard, and Hardy Carroll. The house being open at all times required some adjustment. Young felt that what he had was meant to be shared. Jean had problems when they moved to Jamaica, NY and she was working on her Master’s Degree. She sometimes needed solitude and would have to go to the basement. It was not a philosophical disagreement. 29:30 – There was no graduation ceremony at Hartford. The rest of Young’s class had finished the spring prior. 30:50 – Thomasville, GA. Jean felt awkward with the role of a minister’s wife. She did not fit the traditional role. She was willing to be a Sunday School teacher because she was a teacher. [Recording ends 31:56, continues on Side 2.]
