New Orleans Refugees To Wed In Utah
Published: September 20, 2005
The flooding after Hurricane Katrina swamped Jacqueline Gordon’s house, forcing her first to the New Orleans Convention Center and then to Utah, nearly 1,500 miles from home.
Along the way, she found love.
Gordon and Ronald Herbert, another displaced New Orleanian, are getting married at the Utah Army National Guard’s Camp Williams on Friday.
Their six-day courtship took place mostly in an airport terminal, a plane and Camp Williams, the base south of Salt Lake City.
“We don’t feel no worries,” Herbert said. “This is done by God. When it’s done by God you don’t have to worry about nothing.”
It wasn’t exactly love at first sight when they met Aug. 31. Herbert was at the convention center with friends Walter and Yolanda Favorith when Gordon approached him.
“We didn’t connect that day,” she said. “We were bickering over a pack of cigarettes. He had a bunch of packs of cigarettes. And I didn’t want the Kools. I wanted the Newports.”
Gordon and Herbert parted ways and didn’t see each other again until they met up at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. The cigarette incident apparently forgotten, the talk turned flirtatious.
“That’s when I really took a look at her and fell in love,” Herbert said.
Throughout the four-hour flight to Utah, the pair talked about religion, God and marriage in general while getting to know each other. Since arriving at Camp Williams on Sept. 4, Gordon and Herbert have been inseparable.
“We haven’t left each other’s side since,” he said.
As for the proposal, “he really didn’t pop the question,” Gordon said. “We just kind of came to an agreement.”
A number of Utah businesses have volunteered to help put together the wedding at the camp’s Officers Club.
Favorith, who was also evacuated to Utah with his wife, will be the best man. Erin Evans, whom Gordon met at Camp Williams, will be the maid of honor.
This will be Herbert’s second marriage, and at least the second one for Gordon, who wouldn’t say how many husbands she’s had.
The only drawback to getting married so quickly is that Gordon’s three grown children and two sisters and Herbert’s two sons won’t be able to attend the wedding.
After tying the knot, the Herberts plan to settle in Salt Lake City. They have an apartment downtown and will move in this week.
“It’s beautiful up here,” Herbert said.
Red Cross volunteer Pixie Needham, who has been at Camp Williams since Sept. 4, said most of the evacuees she has seen seem to have an appreciation for life in general, but dating on the base isn’t on the rise.
“I haven’t noticed any more love connections, so to speak,” she said.
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