Picture Play Magazine (Jul - Dec 1929)

90 Tkey Watch Tkeir Step Photo by Brown George Lewis and his bride, Mary Lou Lohman, did some careful planning before deciding they could afford marriage. eral years, and he has been making a nice salary, up in the hundreds every week, but George had to wait nearly a year to wed, because he couldn't afford it sooner. "I was pretty lucky in having a girl who would wait a year for me," smiled George. "When I first met Mary Lou it was taking every cent I earned to keep up the payments on a little house, and support my mother and three brothers who are still going to school. I didn't see how I was able to think of marriage, even after I met the girl I loved. It didn't seem fair to ask Mary Lou to live in a hall room with me, and that is about all I could have afforded on my salary, after other expenses had been deducted. "Luckily, I got an increase in salary when my option was taken up, and by careful planning we figured we could afford marriage. But we have to watch the dollar pretty closely. We try to keep our bills down by not buying heavily in one month. That is, if we get a new piece of furniture for the house, we go without some luxury to make up for it. Every time we go to a Mayfair party, it is because we have made up our minds to let the curtains for the guest room go until the next month." "Bert and I work pretty much on the same plan," explained pretty Priscilla Bonner Woolfan, one of our latest brides. "Do you know what Bert calls our new house? 'Mortgage Manor' is his name for it, and he invites people up to see our equity. "This house has been a dream of ours ever since we became engaged four years ago. We decided that we wouldn't marry until we could really make a home. It took Bert four years to get started as a doctor and save enough to give me this sweet place." I wonder how many modern youths could test their love that far. Four years is a long time to wait. "While we were engaged," continued the blond and dainty Priscilla, "we didn't try to splurge and get around to all the expensive night clubs and picture premieres. That growing bank account looked pretty good to us. If people are really in love as we are, they don't mind missing a few luxuries. Bert and I would rather go to a picture together, than to the Mayfair without each other. "A couple of months before we were married we started this house on what Bert had saved. Of course, even now, it isn't completely furnished the way we want it. Gee, it costs money to get a house together," she laughed. "If my mother hadn't made us some perfectly gorgeous curtains for our living room and the bedrooms, I'm sure we would have been saving for them yet. But," she added, proudly, "everything we've got is good. We don't want to put on a show by furnishing our place with gaudy, cheap stuff. We'd rather take it piece by piece, as we earn it. "Our guest room is going to be perfectly adorable, and it won't cost hardly anything. Bert's very clever at designing, and the carpenter who worked on the house made us a bed for just the cost of the wood. We shall paint it ourselves. If people really know how to manage, they can get such effective things for so little money. But the trouble with most people is that they zvant to spend a lot. Especially the people in Hollywood seem to like to be overcharged for everything, or they don't think they are getting their money's worth." Duane Thompson is a great friend of Priscilla's, and she thinks they were wonderfully wise to wait until they were on their feet before they attempted matrimony. "But Buddy and I will try to get over the rough spots together," she explained. It was just a week before her marriage to Buddy Wattles, and Duane and I had met at one of the numerous prenuptial showers which were being given for her. "We are faced with the same financial problem that meets almost every young couple," the sweet-faced ingenue explained, "and that Continued on page 116 It makes no difference who has the money, Ruth Roland said in announcing her engagement to Ben Bard.