"I didn't get to have the presence of my grandparents in my life growing up," says Marla, "but I certainly did on my wedding day. It was magical."
Marla Rice and her husband Brantley had just exchanged their wedding vows when Marla's mother pulled her aside to inform her youngest daughter that she and her father had a surprise for the newlyweds. "Is Theo here?" Marla wondered if her parents had brought the couple's 150-pound Newfoundland to the wedding.
It turned out to be something even crazier. Marla was led into the lawn where she jumped when she saw a sparkly black and green 1931 Model-A Ford truck. The truck was originally owned by her maternal grandparents—Bob and Barbara Selders—before their horrific deaths in a huge flood that ravaged Johnstown, Penn., in 1977. The floodwaters had killed at least 78 people, Marla's grandparents among them, per PEOPLE.
The long-lost pick-up was one of the couple's few possessions that were not completely destroyed by the floodwaters, and hence was sold to raise income for the family. Terrie, the couple's oldest child at the time, took in siblings Tracie and Tammie, 13 and 10 at the time, while their brother Dallen, 18, resided nearby with a friend's family.
In August 2021, Marla had just chosen her wedding destination and stated to her mom, Tracie Aurandt, that she'd love to have a vintage vehicle at her wedding. "Not long after that, Tracie told me, 'You gotta find my dad's truck,'" recounts her husband Tim, 61, who works at a showroom near the couple's home in Davidsville, Pennsylvania. "And all I could think was, 'How am I going to do that?'"
He got his answer ten months later during a talk with Tracie's older brother Dallen, 63, who recounted meeting the truck's owner years before when making a house call to repair the man's phone line. Tim tracked down the owner and asked if he would consider allowing him to use the vehicle for Marla's wedding. Tracie burst into tears the moment she saw her father's truck. Its old black steering wheel and musty interior odor brought back memories of family weekend outings in the cherished pick-up. "It gave me chills," Tracie recalled. "That truck represented home to me," Tracie shared with PEOPLE. "It was a piece of my life — a piece of all our lives — that I never thought I'd ever see again."
The vehicle's surprise presence at Marla's wedding on Sept. 3 in Bedford, Penn., served to take some of the sting out of a tragedy that had followed the family for decades. The pair kept the surprise a secret until Marla's wedding, held in a beautiful 200-year-old historic resort in southern Pennsylvania. When the couple's siblings, friends, and family saw the truck, they were overtaken with emotion. "It turned a sad thing," explains Tracie, "into something happy."
"As soon as I saw it, my jaw just dropped. It brought tears to my eyes. I couldn't believe it. It was like my grandparents were here with us," Marla shared with PEOPLE. "I didn't get to have the presence of my grandparents in my life growing up," says Marla, "but I certainly did on my wedding day. It was magical."
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Cover Image Source: Facebook | Brantley Stone Rice
