Usually, wedding anniversaries are celebrated among a small gathering of family and friends. However, President Thomas S. Monson and his wife, Sister Frances J. Monson, observed their 64th anniversary at one of the Church's largest gatherings. Their anniversary was Sunday, Oct. 7, the day the concluding sessions of the 182nd Semiannual General Conference was held.
They were married on Oct. 7, 1948, in the Salt Lake Temple.
The future Church President was a 17-year-old University of Utah freshman when he first saw Frances Johnson gliding by with her partner at the school's Hello Day Dance. He has never described it as "love at first sight," but he knew that he wanted to meet that young woman. It took about a month before he managed to get introduced to her by a mutual acquaintance.
"She was — and still is — beautiful," President Monson said during a Church News interview in 2008 as he spoke about their 60th anniversary.
Asked at what point he knew he wanted to marry Frances, President Monson said, "I don't believe that young men, when they're 17 and freshmen at the university, are thinking exactly about marriage. At that time, World War II was raging and all of us young men knew we had to go into the service sometime. In the Salt Lake school system, both Frances and I graduated from high school when we were 16. I turned 17 in August, she in October. We entered the University of Utah at that age as freshmen. The dating patterns then were not who you were going to marry, but who you were going to take to the prom, or to some other social event.
"We dated differently in those days. I dated different girls, she different boys. It was not a go-steady thing right off the bat, but I sure thought the world of her."
Their courtship began during the days of World War II. He enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve and had a serious talk with Frances. "We were going pretty steady at that time," he said. "I told her, 'I think I will come back, but there is no guarantee when there is a war going on.' I magnanimously said, 'It wouldn't be fair for you to just sit at home. You should date while I'm away.' "
President Monson laughed, and then told the Church News, "That was the stupidest thing I ever said in my life! She took me at my word and dated other young men, but we corresponded regularly." (He has kept her letters in a small treasure chest that he made when he was a young boy.)
At the end of basic training, on a 10-day leave, he showed up without telling anyone he was coming home. "The first thing I did that Friday afternoon when I got to Salt Lake City was to call Frances. I said, 'Surprise, I'm home! Let's go out tonight.' She said, 'I have a date.' I said, 'Break it.' From my standpoint, breaking the date was as logical as could be. I'd been away 12 weeks, but she wouldn't break that date. She had written, saying how much she missed me, but I came home and discovered she missed me not quite enough to break a date with someone else."
He was honorably discharged from the Navy in 1946. He proposed in the spring of 1947.
Time, he noted, has passed swiftly and deepened their love for one another.
President Monson described himself as being from "the old school," in which he thought he had to get an education and become established in a career before getting married. That was the pattern he followed. However, he said, "If I had it to do over again, I would have married sooner."
