I never met any of my grandparents, but my mother's sister wrote a little biography of their father. In it she told about how their parents met:

One day while on a picnic at Square Creek Park, John met an old friend of his, Vaughn, and was introduced to Catherine . This was June 25th and everyone was interested in Carrie Nation. On July 5th 1904, the Brown Bonnell Steel Company (in Youngstown OH) gave a picnic at Cedar Point. On the return trip, the last car was uncoupled and left standing on the track until morning. A train bearing doctors, nurses, and help arrived, expecting to find a seriously wrecked passenger coach, but God had protected them and no harm had come to them.

Some few weeks later, John and Catherine attended a dance at Idora Park, but John, having given up dancing, had to stand aside and watch Catherine dancing with Vaughn and others. This seems to have been the spark needed to give him the courage to ask "Kate" to marry him.