Writers: Rod Peterson and Claire Whitaker
Director: Lawrence Dobkin
Music: Alexander Courage.

Mary Ellen Walton gets married!

On Waltons Mountain our family ties were strengthened by hardship. The walls of our house protected us from wind and weather, and we managed somehow to survive grief, and illness, and disappointment. Who then could have believed we would find ourselves so defenseless against romance.

Mary Ellen and David Spencer, a young intern at Rockfish Hospital, quite unexpectedly announce they are getting married…the children are excited and Grandpa to shouts, ‘Whoopee!’

Later, during an engagement party, Dr. Curtis Willard pulls into the driveway and announces he’ll be the new doctor on Walton’s Mountain! He saw the need in The Blue Ridge Chronicle and jumped at the chance to start his own practice.

After convincing the committee (John-Boy, John, and Reverend Fordwick) that he has the cash for the down payment on Dr. Vance’s office and they hire him, Curt immediately gets off on the wrong foot!

When he realizes he needs help “sweet-talking” his patients, Curt asks Mary Ellen to help him at the office, and right away puts his foot into his mouth by telling Mary Ellen she’ll start by straightening out Dr. Vance’s “cock-eyed” filing system – Mary Ellen promptly informs him she organized the system!

Toward the end of the “Hard Luck Dance” fundraiser Curt asks Mary Ellen for one last dance. She hesitates, afraid of what people may say. “There’s nothing for people to talk about,” Curt says. Unless she feels the ‘chemistry’ that he feels. Curt kisses her as Erin watches from the bushes.

During the wedding rehearsal at the church Reverend Fordwick asks Mary Ellen if she will take David as her true and lawful husband. She is unable to say ‘I do’ and runs from the church confused, realizing that something is missing in her love for David. She gives back the engagement ring that David gave her.

What will Mary Ellen do? Who will she marry…if anyone at all?

We would always remember that day when our friends and neighbors gathered on the mountain at the site of the first Walton homestead. It somehow seemed fitting that the days leading up to Mary Ellen’s marriage had been filled with turmoil. All of us who knew and loved her had learned to expect the unexpected.