Wedding: Lauren Ekroth and Linda Kay Cornell

Lauren Elton Ekroth — his full name confirmed for the first time in the Honolulu announcement — married Linda Kay Cornell on the morning of November 29, 1969, at the Church of the Crossroads. The ceremony, officiated by Rev. Lawrence (Larry) Jones at 10:30 a.m., took place at the same church where Ekroth had been managing the sanctuary crisis just three months earlier. Stephen Lane served as best man; Mrs. David Krieger was matron of honor; Robert Harrison and K.S. Sitaram seated guests. The wedding announcement ran in three papers: the Rochester Times-Union (bride’s hometown, November 29), the Democrat and Chronicle (November 30), and the Honolulu Advertiser and Star-Bulletin (December 1).

Linda Kay Cornell was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Clayton S. Cornell of Rochester, New York, where her father worked in the advertising department of the Times-Union and Democrat and Chronicle. She graduated from the University of Hawaii in December 1969 with a degree in French literature. Following a formal reception for 150 guests in the church parlors, the couple held an informal reception from 2 p.m. until sundown at the Waikiki Shores Lanai overlooking Waikiki Beach. After a honeymoon that took them to California, Minneapolis, Superior, and Rochester — visiting the cities that mattered to both of their histories — they returned to Hawaii and set up home at 2230 Kamehameha Ave., Honolulu.

Three weeks after the Ekroth-Cornell wedding, the relationship proved reciprocal: on December 20, Stephen Lane married Carol Yukiko Iijima at the same Church of the Crossroads, with Lauren Elton Ekroth serving as his best man. The Honolulu Advertiser ran the Lane-Iijima announcement on December 28. Both weddings, within the same month, at the same church, with each man standing for the other.