My dad’s parents were Mainers through and through. Grandpa was even known to say, “ay-YUH” upon occasion. (That’s Maine-speak for “yes.”)

So imagine my surprise – as an adult – to learn that Grandma and Grandpa Vayo were married in Paducah, Kentucky. Ninety-four years ago.

And today is their anniversary.

Their nuptials were written up in the society column of The Paducah Sun-Democrat on the afternoon of their wedding.

Need help to get your bearings? Paducah is located south of the mighty Ohio River in western Kentucky:

And this is the majestic Saint Francis de Sales Church, where they married:

The society-page article continued, with a description of the ladies’ wedding apparel:

Here is one of their wedding photos:

Grandma had guts. She was 23 years old. Her father had died just that spring, still a young man, in a flu epidemic. Could you imagine traveling from Maine to Kentucky back in 1926? Arriving on a Wednesday and getting married the very next morning?

She chose wisely. She and Grandpa remained married for 67 years, until he passed away in 1993. Dad remembers how thankful Grandma was to have such a wonderful life with her dear husband.

They married in Paducah on Thanksgiving Day.

The wedding mass was at 7:30am. Why so early? Back then Catholics wishing to share in Holy Communion were required to fast after midnight. Receiving communion on their wedding day would have been very important to Grandma and Grandpa.

Although he’d only moved to Paducah five months prior, Grandpa got the hometown boy write-up in the paper:

I love this photo of Grandpa. His thick hair and blue eyes continue, as inherited traits, four generations later.

The Haags hosted a wedding reception for the couple that evening.

Grandma and Grandpa’s first home was at 532 Washington Street, which is now part of a public park. The McCracken County Public Library is located right across the street.

More than 80 years later, grandson David spent close to two weeks in Paducah as a resident artist. He recently sent me a copy of the notes he’d shared with our parents and Dad’s siblings at the time.

Here are a few excerpts:

Saint Francis de Sales, the church where Grandma and Grandpa were married, is still standing and its double steeples are a downtown landmark. The congregation was founded in 1849, the present structure dating from 1870.

Next door is the Columbia Theater, an elegant building with blue-and-white tiles on the exterior; it looks old enough that the newlyweds very likely enjoyed a few talkies there [indeed, the theater opened in April, just months after their wedding]. One or two doors down from the theater are some window displays commemorating the now-closed S.S. Kresge department store, which opened in 1914 and therefore was probably Rudy’s fiercest competitor.

Rudy’s, of course, was J.A. Rudy & Sons Department Store, where Grandpa worked in the advertising department. [In his letters], Grandpa wrote fondly of the parties and entertainments that the owner put on for the employees. Alas, the store was one of the casualties of the great Paducah Flood of 1937 that put downtown under eleven feet of water. There are lots of businesses in town run by Rudys, so the family apparently is still a force in the local economy.

I went looking for their old neighborhood.

Grandpa wrote that he and Grandma lived in an old brick duplex across from the jail on Washington Street. Many of the municipal buildings are still on Washington, but the jail is now a modern structure a block away. I didn’t see any brick duplexes in the area. Still, there’s a good chance I walked right by the ghost of their front porch.

Grandma and Grandpa lived in Paducah for only a few years. Next stop? Utica, New York, where they would start their family.

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