A pretty 29-year-old bride named Courtney Driskill explained that she was still recovering from rheumatic fever. She had spent most of her twenties sleeping 20 hours a day. To pay her insurance premiums, her mother had gotten a job at a local department store earning $6.75 an hour. Courtney would be tired and sick, curled up on her parents’ couch, and in her grogginess, she’d see her mother heading off to work on winter mornings.

As she entered the Magic Room, with her mother at her side, Courtney said, “There’s no one else I’d want to share this moment with.

Courtney ended up marrying a Marine drill sergeant with two children from a previous marriage. When I asked her to define the word “love,” she talked about her mother, helping men find ties and pants at JCPenny, day after day, using her entire salary to pay her insurance premiums. It was a daily, unspoken act of love.

Pictured: Courtney, husband John, and her two stepchildren