Summer’s father, Vernon Thomas, owned two hardware stores and served on the board of his church. He believed his daughter should marry someone with clean fingernails, a college education, and family property that did not sit within sight of an abandoned mine. When he learned about Dan, he first became angry, then forbade Summer from seeing him. A week later, he arranged for her to live with an aunt in Wichita and attend a secretarial school there. She was to leave on October 14.