I asked my mum this and she told me that it was a Friday, she had been working all day and wasn’t feeling particularly well, when she went home that evening she had no intention of doing anything except having an early night. A friend asked her if she was going to a dance that night and she declined. Later that evening another friend called who wouldn’t take no for an answer and against her better judgement she decided to go.
She met my dad at the dance.
I don’t know if it was ‘love at first sight’ but they were married not that long afterwards and will, god willing, celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary in 2021. Mum worked in a cigarette factory (though as far as I’m aware never smoked, either did my dad) and dad was a farmer, he later joined the Forestry Service.
Introduced by a mutual friend. My dad used to joke that she (said friend) told him she wanted him to meet a “good Christian woman,” but he declined saying he’d prefer to meet a sinner and reform her. Obviously, he wound up meeting her.
Church. Neither of them is particularly religious, it was “Chinese Church,” which was really more of a social thing than religious, especially in the 50s.
We kids were told that they met at a dance in my mother’s home town, shortly after the end of WWII. My father might have been wearing his Merchant Marine noncom uniform. At this time he was already (age 23) divorced, and his infant daughter had died of SIDS. My mother, age 20, was pretty much an innocent, I think. They were married a few months later, a marriage that lasted 57 years until my mother’s death.
My dad was working at an auto parts store, made friends with a group of guys who had a hot rod “gang”. One of the guys in the gang had a little sister, who had recently graduated high school and was working at Gambel’s Department Store. Mom was not impressed by him at first, stating he looked like a typical greaser (it was the mid-50’s, after all). Dad said she was a “prissy gal”.
They married a year later.
Sadly, Dad died 5 months before they could celebrate their 50th anniversary.
Future Uncle was dating Mom’s best friend (Future Aunt) in high school and there was an attempt at fixing her up with Future Uncle’s older brother who was then in the Marines and home on leave. The date didn’t come off at that time, but Mom acquired a photo of her potential blind date and held onto it because she thought the boy looked cute in his uniform.
Three years later, Mom is in college and meets a guy at a party. They get to talking and she learns his last name. “I’ve got a photo of one of your brothers,” she says, and produces the photo from her pocketbook.
Not a brother. Him. He was out of the Marines by then.
He was a grad student in biochemistry at a small state university, and she was a secretary in the same department. It wasn’t quite love at first sight, but she always said that as soon as she saw him, she knew he was the man she was going to marry. He wanted to propose on the first date but thought it would be more seemly to wait for the second. She waited until the third or fourth date to accept his proposal. They were married 37 years until death parted them.
Hairdressing school. My dad was out of the Marines and was looking for skills to turn into a career. He met my mom, who also was training for a career, but didn’t like hairdressing.
Apparently, when you’re cutting hair, your customer keeps telling you how to do your job. Dad didn’t like people telling him what to do.
My dad and Mom grew up within a mile of each other and knew each other at least by the time Dad was 8 and Mom was 5. They didn’t know each other well and actually attended different schools. But they first did meet at a very young age.
They were married in 1944 and stayed married until my father’s death in 2005 so almost 61 years.
Daddy was stationed at a small Navy depot and met my Mothers sister at a dance club. My Mother was too young to get in the club. Daddy went to their house on Sunday and met My Mother. The rest was just like you’d expect. He was around their house alot while he was living on the base. He was deploying overseas in a few weeks so they rushed up a wedding. She stayed at her Mom’s house til he got stateside.
Lived on farms less than a half mile apart. My Dad played with my Mom’s brothers, etc. But the key “meeting” was after the war and were no longer living at home when they ran into each other outside a movie theater.
They grew up in the same general area of east Baltimore and they attended the same Polish church. The only story I remember was that Dad went to Mom’s house to see her and she told her father not to let him in. He was 16 at the time and she was 12. I don’t know how things progressed from there, but they married when Dad was a 22-y/o Marine and Mom was 18 and working at the library (she graduated high school at 16.) Dad died 2 months after their 50th anniversary.
It was the mid-50s and they both had summer jobs at a resort in the Catskills (like was depicted in the movie Dirty Dancing). He was a waiter and she was a baby sitter. They both lived in Brooklyn but went to different schools.
They got married in 1958. She was 19 and he was one month shy of his 21st birthday. According to New York law at the time, his mom had to sign off on the marriage. It was 18 for women and 21 for men.
I was born in '63, my sister was born in '65 and they were divorced in '72.
My father was a telephone lineman, and his company transferred him to a small town in SE Georgia in 1966. One payday, he stopped at my grandparents’ restaurant to treat himself to a steak. My mother was the cute teenage waitress.
Grandmother was manning the grill that night. According to the story, the first statement Ma made about her future husband was “Mama, some fool wants a T-bone, lightly burnt.”
My parents married in 1967, when my mother was 17 and my father was 24. They were a great match, but only had 11 years together before Daddy died.
Strange aside: after they’d been out on a few dates, my father told Ma “I’ve seen you in Savannah before.”
“Nuh uh.”
“Yep. At the St. Patrick’s Day parade in 1961.”
“Never went to the parade.”
“You and your parents and sisters were waiting to buy tickets at the movie theater. You were wearing (describes specific outfit,) and your mama was wearing a light blue cloth coat.”
My mom’s family had, in fact, gone to see the movie “Exodus” at a theater on the parade route. Daddy was marching with his high school JROTC unit. He was 18 years and 8 days old, and my mom 4 months away from turning 11.
