BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?

Subject: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 14 Jul 05 - 09:58 PM

This is a spin-off thread. I really wanted to talk about how my parents met, but it didn't seem like it fit into the "How Did You Meet Your Wife/Husband" thread.

The funny thing is, I've found that many people have no idea how their parents met. I mean, c'mon... if they hadn't we wouldn't be around.

When my Father was a young man, he was quite a ladies man. He often was going out with two women at the same time. On the same night. He'd tell the girl he went out with after work that he had to get home early, and then go pick up the other girl who he had told that he had to work late. One night, he and a buddy of his went up to the
hospital to visit a friend, and my Dad spotted my Mom, who was in nurses training. Of course, they weren't my Mom and Dad yet.. Dad was very infatuated with her and asked her to go out with him. As it turns out, my Mom was engaged to be married to Alfred (a real catch... the Captain of the high school basketball team ... there were only 22 kids in the graduating class, so he probably didn't have a lot of competition.) At first, Mom refused Dad's advances, but my Father bought some tickets to an Amateur vaudeville show at the local theater and asked my Mom to go with him. She finally gave in, as a couple of the nurses were in the show.

That night, while Mom and Dad were at the vaudeville show, Alfred showed up after work to see Mom and the other nurses told him that she'd gone to the vaudeville show with my Dad. He was furious, and heartbroken.

Now, the story is more complicated than that. You see, Velma, who was a classmate of Mom and Alfred's was in love with Alfred, and was pining in the wings. And, Mom's brother, my Uncle Walt married Alfred's sister Edna. And the story goes:

ALFRED

"Alfred told my Mom that he would be her one and only,
But she'd have to be his one and only, too.
And if he ever caught her going out again with Elmer (my Dad)
That their courtin' days would sure be through

CHORUS:

Cause Alfred loved my Mom but she was crazy 'bout my Dad
'Course he wasn't my Dad back then
And Alfred hardly noticed that Velma existed
Though she thought he was the living end

Elmer bought some tickets for a night at the Apollo
So that they could see the vaudeville show
And even though she knew that she was bound to catch the Devil,
My mom decided she would go

CHORUS

After work that night when Alfred came around to call
They told him that my Mom was at the show
And when he found she'd gone with Elmer, Alfred blew his top
Just to think that she would disappoint him so

CHORUS

Alfred told my Uncle Walt (who married Alfred's sister Edna)
After Mom and Dad were wed
He took a train to Appleton, or maybe it was Fondulac
Because it made him feel so bad

CHORUS

After Mom and Dad were married, Alfred finally noticed Velma
And he came around to call
And when he finally got around to asking Velma for her hand
She thought the wait was worth it all

What about that? A double happy ending..

Any stories?

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: number 6
Date: 14 Jul 05 - 10:11 PM

My father was a 21 yr old newly commissioned 2nd Leutenant in the Canadian Armed Forces, my mother (had just arrived to a new city) met at a garden party in Ottawa. My father phoned his sister that nite and told her he had just met the woman he was going to marry.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: sixtieschick
Date: 14 Jul 05 - 10:24 PM

Jerry, that's a circuitous, well-told and hard act to follow!

A mutual former high school English teacher set them up: On Mom's 20th birthday, teacher invited future-Mom over to have her portrait painted. Teacher also invited future-Dad, aged 23 and in the Navy, to tell future-Mom jokes to keep her laughing for the portrait. The rest is 53 years of history that ended with Dad's last breath.

M.

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: dianavan
Date: 14 Jul 05 - 10:37 PM

My mom was from a farming family that lived on one side of the river and my father was from a fishing family on the other side of the river. She was thirteen and he was twenty when they met. Her family did not approve and they had to wait until she was eighteen to marry. They remained married until he died at age 68.

They were best friends.

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: bbc
Date: 14 Jul 05 - 10:45 PM

Double-dating at the bowling alley w/ their respective best friends after WWII. Dad fell for Mom (who he claims flirted w/ him) & protested all the way to the altar that he wasn't ready to get married. Now, more than 50 years later, they are still together. Gave me a stable childhood & have given me emotional & financial support as needed, through the years. I'm thankful they're my folks. As it happens, I'm leaving in 2 days to visit them in their home state of Missouri.

best,

bbc

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: ranger1
Date: 14 Jul 05 - 10:50 PM

My dad was my mom's oldest brother's best friend. That's as far as I'm going with that particular pairing. I'm glad they met, otherwise I wouldn't be here today, but it was a very short, unhappy and violent (on his end) union.

My mom met my step-dad when she was an admin assistant for a drug and alcohol rehab center. He was doing his thesis on the progression of alcoholism. She thought he was cute and finally asked him out for ice cream. They had a good time, second date, etc. She brought him home to meet the kids and I thought he was pretty cool. We went for a vacation together, he got cold feet and went back to Europe and wrote her a "dear Jane" letter. She booked a flight to Germany, sent him a telegram with flight info on it and told him to be there. He was. They worked things out and were married for 20 years. He is and will always be my dad, even though they're not together anymore.

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Jul 05 - 11:02 PM

Various mutual friends. Then they were dating (in a group), and she thought he was just a crazy, nice guy until he told her one day that he'd been offered voice lessons (for singing) in New York. She realized that she might never see him again and fell crying into his arms. In 1942 he volunteered for the draft so that his brother could help my grandfather finish a house they were building and in 1944 they were married just before he was sent first to New Guinea and then to the Philipines. They were married six years and four kids before he was killed in a work accident. Mom never remarried; she died in 1981, thirty-one years after he did. We all figured that she stuck around to insure his last words were taken care of ("Take care of my kids") and it was time to spend eternity together.

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: maire-aine
Date: 14 Jul 05 - 11:34 PM

Another tale of a set-up at the bowling alley. My Dad's bowling team buddy was married to a woman my Mother bowled with. They set them up, and the rest was history...

Maryanne

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: Sorcha
Date: 15 Jul 05 - 10:18 AM

I have no idea.

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 15 Jul 05 - 10:26 AM

Double date - He and his best buddy and roommate at Army Officer Training School and She and Her best friend/roommate in the Waves.

sixty plus years later we are STILL trying to find out the details - because we know the original pair-ups were Mome with Uncle Gene - and Dad With Aunt Dottie - but the night ENDED with Dad chasing Mom around a hotel room. then there is something about watching cows on a ridge at dawn.

they are both pretty close-mouthed about it. but we do know Mom wanted a long engagement and Dad told her anything over 6 months and he was out of there!

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: Mooh
Date: 15 Jul 05 - 10:30 AM

Mum was teaching Sunday school, Dad was the new Curate, both at an Anglican parish in Toronto after WW2. They met, six months later got hitched, and immediately left for Alberta. Both are gone now, as is one of my older sisters, and I miss them all terribly.

Theirs was a somewhat meagre, but unselfish life, and they held great affection for each other to the end.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 15 Jul 05 - 10:56 AM

Mom was a postwar refugee in Paris, hanging out with the other refugees and having a great time in the late 40's - early 50's. Dad, a young Socialist, was one of the Young Americans in Paris (I've mentioned before that he was the first American to interview Jean-Paul Sartre), writing a book on Existentialism and French Youth. They met in someone's hotel room, but at the time Mom was living with her Hungarian boyfriend and Dad was married. However, when Dad's first wife went back to the US by boat as there were no passenger planes yet, she went stark raving bonkers and had to be literally clapped in irons till the ship docked in NY. At that time they (Dad and his family) found out that a) she was 20 years older than they'd thought and b) was a raving lunatic who'd been in and out of asylums all her life. When Dad had been in Paris for over a year after that, she had a child, at which point Dad divorced her since sperm doesn't cross the Atlantic very well.
Flash forward a couple of years, Dad is now a reporter in Chicago, Mom gets a chance to come to the US and her sponsor is in Chicago. They met rather accidentally, both single now, and lived together for a while and then got married in 1953.

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: Charmion
Date: 15 Jul 05 - 11:58 AM

In French class at McGill University in Montreal, September 1948. Mum was a 19-year-old raving beauty from Ottawa; Dad was a 28-year-old veteran just out of the British navy.

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 15 Jul 05 - 12:19 PM

MMario:

I didn't know the story of how my parents met until I was well into my fifties. One summer when I was home visiting my family, we were sitting out in the front lawn in our lawn chairs, and Mom happened to mention Corrine. I'd never heard the name before. Then the whole story came about my Dad and Corrine (ended up in another song that I wrote.. Montana.) Dad was going with Corrine before he met Mom, but Corrine's family moved out to Montana and my Father drove all the way there from Wisconsin in his Model T, trying to convince her to come back.

As long as we were on a roll, I tried to find out more about how my Mom and Dad met, and was told the basic story that started this thread. After I wrote the song, Mom fessed up and told me that she had been engaged to Alfred when she met my Father. (She had left that little bit of information out of the story when she told it that day sitting in our lawn chairs.

I don't know why it took so long for my parents to tell the story of how they met. Maybe because I've never asked, or shown any particular interest. I have to laugh at my family now. They want to tell me family stories in hopes that I will put them in to a song.

How my Grandparents met is more of a mystery, because none of their kids ever questioned them.

I happen to love these family stories. Last year at the NOMAD festival, I did a workshop titled A Family Album Of Songs. It was great fun for me, doing a photo album with corresponding song lyrics as the text.

Before my Father died, I got him to answer a series of questions on tape, and it is a treasured piece of family history.

Gather it while you can..

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: sixtieschick
Date: 15 Jul 05 - 12:29 PM

Oooo--I know about my paternal grandparents--they both loved to dance and met at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City. Grandma danced there with George Raft once. They (grandma and grandpa--not George Raft) ended up being ballroom dance instructors together.

M.

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 15 Jul 05 - 12:34 PM

That's great, sixties! I've heard that my Grandfather and Grandmother Rasmussen met singing in a church choir in a Danish Settlement in Northern Wisconsin. They came over to this country from Denmark as young adults, not knowing each other. They met over here.

When I asked my Father and other siblings of his, no one was really sure about details. By then, my Grandparents were gone, so there was no chance to ask them, myself. The church choir story sounded fishy, because I never heard either of them sing.. even a snatch of a song around the house.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: Pauline L
Date: 15 Jul 05 - 07:43 PM

A precursor to Internet dating services: My father and mother both served (the word they used) in WWII, he in the Pacific and she in France. A mutual acquaintance gave each one the other's address and they corresponded. My father would write my mother poems on postcards. He found out that his C.O. was copying his poems, disguising them as his own, and sending them to his own girlfriend. My father fought back by incorporating my mother's name into his rhymes. After WWII, they met in NYC; he read to her from the Rubiyiat of Omar Khayyam; and they married soon after. My mother kept the postcards that my father had sent her with his poems, and I enjoyed reading them as a child.

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 15 Jul 05 - 08:57 PM

Jerry-

This is a nice thread and you've composed a wonderful song as well.

My parents really shouldn't have met at all. My father was a shy serious recent graduate from CCNY, majoring in philosopy and accounting, and underemployed. His sisters persuaded him to come up to Maine with them to stay at a farm that was adjacent to one owned by some wild Greenwich Village modern artists. This was back in the early 1930's.
Father was fond of his sisters but had great misgivings about going off to the wilds of Maine.

Fortunately for me and my brother he did go. And met my mother, the daughter of William and Marguerite Zorach, who was a wild 14-year old. Father was 12 years older but fell in love immediately but was wise enough to just be her friend for a few summers. They collaborated on the local scandle sheet my mother edited, created plays, and sang folk songs. And father tutored her in math and chess.

When mother went off to Oberlon College, father was teaching in Arthurdale, West Virginia, and visited her several times in his intrepid Model A. He even convinced her to visit the project in West Virgina, luring her down there with stories of horse back riding in the hills and real folk songs. Well, mother soon got disgusted with the conservative art classes at Oberlon and dropped out after her first year. My mother's father was not thrilled with my father at this point but but her mother thought it was a good match but still insisted that mother at least learn how to cook.

They were married by Judge John L. Lewis at City Hall in NYC in 1936, moved to Maine the next year, and never looked back.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 15 Jul 05 - 09:34 PM

My father-in-law was at the beach with a friend when my mother-in-law to be walked by. He turned to his friend and said "That's the girl I'm going to marry." It was He did. It was a mistake, though. They spent the rest of their lives together. Unhappily.

My father was in the Army Air Corps in WW II. My mother was in the WACs at the same base. They met. She got knocked up. They married. They divorced. The biggest mistake I ever made was letting the court place me with her. Bad marriages run in my mother's family, at least 3 generations of them that I know of. Only the girls, though. We guys seem to be more stabile.

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: Mooh
Date: 16 Jul 05 - 12:20 PM

Jerry...You sir, are a prince among commoners.

Because of this topic I was still thinking about my folks when I crossed the street this morning to tend to the
neighbour's place while she's away. I noticed another neighbour sitting in her front porch reading the paper, so I
wandered over to say hello and shoot the breeze. I asked her how her parents met, how she and her husband had
met, and generally listened to her life history for an hour or more. We know each other well anyway, but I heard
things I never knew until this morning, and she was more than delighted that I asked. She is over 90 years old,
and her parents met sometime in the 1890s. Fascinating stuff in an entirely different age but with the same human
urges and desires as today.

So folks, take time out from Mudville and go ask these questions of those who don't spend too much time
on-line. It's an education, never mind a comfort.

Peace, Mooh.

P.S. Tried to post this yesterday but the Cat went to sleep as I did.

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: MBSLynne
Date: 16 Jul 05 - 01:40 PM

My Mum was in the WRNS and my Dad in the Royal Navy. They met in the Naafi in Chatham. The girl Mum was with introduced her to these two sailors and Mum wasn't very interested...until Dad stood up (He's 6'2" and she loves tall men. She, by the way was only 4'10"!) He was 20 and she was 25. They went out, and he took her home for his 21st, then got a posting overseas. He walked in, said "Either marry me now or never see me again" and she, liking a masterful man, agreed. They were married in a registry office in Leicestershire, and he went off to Malta two weeks later. By the time they saw each other again, they had an 11 month old child! He's still a masterful man, and she has sometimes been less than happy about it, but overall I think it's been good and they have now been married for 53 years.

Despite being deeply into family history I don't know how my Mum's parents met, and I don't think she does, but my Dad's parents lived in adjacent streets as teenagers.

Love Lynne

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 17 Jul 05 - 05:52 AM

My fatherlived in the neighbouring village to my mum... she was a barmaid in one of the pubs and he would walk over just to drink there, despite there being 3 pubs in his own village. He followed her home one night and the rest is history.

I used to think this was a really romantic story until I realised that the pub was just 3 doors down from where my mother was living and it's only 2/3 mile over the fields from the house he lived in to the pub.

We don't know how her parents met, but it was probably in the local market - both being agricultural families. My father never knew his father, Granny having 'got into trouble' aged 16 whilst in service at 'the big house'.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 17 Jul 05 - 08:54 AM

Hey, Mooh: That's a wonderful story. Here's one in return:

Twenty years or so ago when I was Director of a Museum, we were negotiating to buy 11 acres of adjoining land to use as nature trails.
There were three houses on the property... all old and falling apart. An elderly woman and her husband lived in the main house, and a sister and brother lived in the small house and a small cottage. The property belonged to the elderly woman, Helen Dupuis and her husband and even though it was worth a great deal of money, Mrs. Dupuis and her husband were living a near-miserly life.Mr. Dupuis was almost completely blind and spent all of his time sitting around, listening to television, from what I could figure. He couldn't really do much of anything, so all the work and responsibility rested on Mrs. Dupuis. Once we began negotiating to buy the poperty, Mr. Dupuis moved down to a small home he and his wife owned in Florida, and the sister and brother moved away. That left Mrs. Dupuis by herself, to handle all the legal problems, trying to sell the property. And there were many. For several months, she was there alone, out in the country with no family, and I started checking on her to make sure that she was alright. Before long, I wasn't going to check on her, I was going because I had such a delightful time listening to her talk about her family history. And she had endless photos to illustrate the stories. What started out as a part of my job became a wonderful, close friendship. It didn't really make any difference that I was in my early 40's at the time and she was in her 70's. It wasn't a romance-thing... just a genuine appreciation for someone. And I know that she looked forward to my stopping over. She'd put a pot of coffee on (if it wasn't on already) and she'd regale me with stories of her life.

When her parents bought the property, they had the main house moved there from another location (and it was a BIG house.) She had photographs of the house up on an enormous platform, being moved by several horses! The house was perched on top of a hill overlooking a lake, and it was beyond my comprehension how they could have gotten it up there, moving it with horses. And then, she'd tell me of the good times they had when she was a girl. Her Father played the accordian and one of her sisters played piano, and she'd remember the nights they sat around in the living room, singing. There were countless stories... each more fascinating than the previous one.

When we finally closed the deal on the house, I felt a great loss in my life. I went over at 4 in the morning, the day that she was leaving, to say goodbye. She'd hired someone to drive her to Florida in their car, and there were several people sitting around in the kitchen when I arrived. It was still dark out. But, she managed to slip away and we went out in the backyard and stood there together, watching the sun come up. There was a big pine tree in the back yard and when the sun hit the flower buds, they lit up like candles. I'd never seen anything as beautiful as that... it looked like a 100 foot tall Christmas tree.

Touching hearts across a couple of generations is a rare thing... I think as much as anything, because we never make the effort. But, I'll never forget Mrs. Dupuis. Now, it seems strange that I am close to the age she was when I got to know her. Doesn't seem so old any more.

And of course, I wrote a song about it..

"Why is it when you're young, it's the good old days,
And when you're old, it's the thing to be young?
And just about the time that you learn how to live,
Everybody thinks you're life is done?
And everything you learned way back then
Doesn't really mean a thing
And nobody wants to hear the good old songs
When they've got a new song to sing"

I often wonder about songwriters who are so focused on their own small slice of life, who walk past the most beautiful, fascinating stories every day and never stop to listen to them...

I'm glad that you did, Mooh..

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: Mr Red
Date: 17 Jul 05 - 10:14 AM

Bible classes.

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jul 05 - 11:21 AM

Jerry:

A deep truth, and a great thread!

My folks met at the offices of what was then Time, Inc. in New York City. She was a researcher for Fortune, he was an editor. They fell in love and got married and moved to Connecticut and raised kids. Then, each in their own time, they died.

That's the short version!


A

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: maire-aine
Date: 17 Jul 05 - 11:12 PM

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.

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: LilyFestre
Date: 17 Jul 05 - 11:34 PM

My mom had been involved with a young gentleman for a long time. Apparently they had been fighting and she had had enough. She went out with a girlfriend without the gentleman. She met my dad at a local college hangout....she went back to her dorm room that night and told her roommate that she had just met the man she was going to marry...and she did.


My mom and I had lunch at that local hangout not long ago...it was the first time she had been there in many years. The walls are full of old black and white photos of how the place used to be....a very nice walk down memory lane for her and a very interesting day of stories for me!

:)

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: Dave Swan
Date: 17 Jul 05 - 11:46 PM

My dad had returned from naval intelligence in the Pacific in '45 and was assigned a plain-clothes detail out of the Federal Building in San Francisco. He was cool, quiet, and quite good looking.

In the same building worked a slim, stylish civilian de-briefer who also had top secret clearance. She like the look of the guy in the fedora.

San Francisco in the 40's; fog, cable cars, spies. Almost too Dashiel Hammet to be endured. They married.

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 18 Jul 05 - 09:22 AM

My parents were working in the same factory: Midland Electrical (MEM) in Birmingham. My father was a chargehand inspecting the work of room of females who had to use sharp knives to trim surplus material from electrical plugs made of ceramic in those days (preWW2). Dad made sarcastic remarks and was hypercritical of Mum's work to get her attention. It got him a knife in the back of the hand. He just went to first aid and didn't report her to management but asked her out to a dance! The rest is history. They had 50+ years of marriage before she died, no further sharp object disputes either!

RtS

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: ranger1
Date: 18 Jul 05 - 09:54 AM

My grandparents met at a square dance in northern Maine. My grandmother loved to dance, and my grandfather was an excellent dancer and very handsome. They were married 44 years before my grandfather passed away.

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: sian, west wales
Date: 18 Jul 05 - 10:23 AM

During the war, a lot of British airmen and support troops came to Canada for training where it was comparitively safe. It was the custom for kindly older people to open their homes to 'Our Boys' who wanted a family-atmosphere holiday when On Leave.

Uncle Bill and Aunt Lucy Thompson in my home town (Niagara Penninsula) didn't have any kids of their own, but were Uncle and Aunt to most of the town. They took in young airmen from all over and provided Wholesome Entertainment, like picnics and tea dances. Uncle Bill and Aunt Lucy were Methodists so started off by inviting the Nice Methodist Girls of Good Families to these occasions but, by mid war, this lot was pretty much paired up with the Thompson's guests, so Uncle Bill and Aunt Lucy extended the net to the Nice Presbyterian Girls of Good Families ... of which my mother was one.

I have a few sketchy details of some of the Boys she met this way including some from Australia, but we'll let that be ...

So, at some point during the war, he who would become my dad - a Welsh farm boy and electrical apprentice - was sent out as Ground Crew to various RAF training installations in Canada, including Letherbridge, Alta. and Trenton, Ont. At Trenton, he saw Uncle Bill and Aunt Lucy's note on the bulletin board and arranged to go and stay with them and met my mum.

The rest is not, yet, history.

Dad, at some point in his travels, had met some woman who made superb lemon meringue pie. He asked her for the recipe and kept it in his wallet. (I remember seeing it in my childhood; I think it's disappeared now...) He swore that if he could ever find a young lady who could make it right, he'd marry her.

Mum could. He did.

A post script: Lemon meringue pie from scratch can be a messy and time consuming business which mum never really enjoyed. When we were little, Sherriff's came out with an instant pie filling which she decided to try ... without telling dad. She used it for years before he actually found out.

It was only fairly recently that mother let slip a few details about other boyfriends she had had. Which was a shock to my system as I'd never considered this possibility before! One was the son of a fruit farm owner near Niagara on the Lake, and thus Very Well Off. But his name was Pickins Kerr. How could a fruit family be so horrible as to call a son 'Pickins'???? Anyway, I guess she dumped him when he kinda bragged that he didn't have to go to war 'cause he was exempt; a sore point with her as she had several brothers and a sister in the Services at the time ...

Don't know how my Grandparents met (on either side) but I know that my Welsh grandfather's mother didn't approve of her daughter in law for some strange reason and so Nain (grandma, in North Walian) wasn't allowed to move onto the farm for the first few years!

One set of my mother's great grandparents met on the ship from Penzance. He was a tailor and was emmigrating; she was going to meet her fiancee in Montreal. They were married before they made land.

Every life is a story!

siân

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 18 Jul 05 - 12:52 PM

My father saw my mother when she came to his home with his sister and immediately fell in love with her. She was not so sure at the first glance, but during the war competitors became increasingly rare.

They'll be married for sixty years later this year.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: Linda Kelly
Date: 18 Jul 05 - 05:02 PM

In Singapore in 1953, mother in the Army -father, a NAAFI inpector. It was very much Raffles Bar, white cocktail jackets and daquiris and a good time was had by all. father pursued mother until she gave in when a friend persuaded her that the only way to get rid of the annoyng oik was to go on a date. The rest is history. Last year was their 50th wedding anniversary and I collated as much information as I could and presented it to them in an aniversary album. Among the classic photos was one of my father in full evening dress, with his trouser legs rolled up to the knee, trying to eat what appear to be a hot cross bun on a piece of string. His fellow competitors in this bizarre contest included the Adjutant General and, my father reckons THE Bill Bailey (who owned a bar there). No wonder his wfe wanted him to come home.

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Jul 05 - 10:27 PM

My father was a "confirmed bachelor" until he literally bumped into a cute WAVE posted to the same Navy base in 1945. Their hilarious courtship and wedding should have been a Roz Russell movie -- but all I'll say now is that one of their dates involved shooting rats at the local dump!
They've been married 60 years come October (they're not shooting rats any more, though).
Another good family meeting story is the one my great-uncle used to tell about how he and his wife met. They were both very elegant in manner, but true kooks in their own sweet way --
In any case, Uncle Ben used to say he'd met my aunt when she came into the men's room one night and started looking under the doors. She would laugh as much as he did at that story.

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: Pistachio
Date: 11 Aug 05 - 02:20 PM

My Mothers' parents had divorced when she was 5 and Grandad took her to India with his work! His sister 'Aunt Bess' was Mums' chaperone.
Mum went to a convent school up in the hills near Darjeeling while Grandad worked hundreds of miles away in Bombay. For the summer holidays Mum spent days on the train, cross country to be stay with her father. Grandads' friends, Mr and Mrs Donald Cacary, often entertained and used to 'helpfully hijack' naval officers to go spend the evenings playing cards and enjoy time ashore.
Mum was 13 when Lieutenant David McGregor RN (24) was invited round.
Dad sailed off but fell ill with tuberculosis and was sent ashore to hospital in South Africa. Having time on his hands he decided to write to Angela and they corresponded for years. Dad spent 2 years in S.A. having major surgery and eventually returned to service out of Greenock, Scotland. Mum finally left India in 1948 aged 18 - and became a Nurse in London. She and Dad married in 1952 and by 1958 had 5 children. Dad wasn't particularly fit or sociable but he and Mum often went away for romantic weekends, leaving us in the care of Aunt Jean. Dad always said he wanted to die at home - and before Mum - and he did, on his 66th Birthday, in 1984!
Mum now has 8 grandchildren and shows no sign of slowing down.
...I've just re-read this and clearly remember Mum and Dad waltzing round our large hallway one night when the gramaphone was moved to the hall because the lounge was being decorated! Happy days.
H.

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 11 Aug 05 - 09:06 PM

Only bits and pieces of how the grandparents I knew best met; but apparently her family had very recently arrived from "back east." They came from the same general area as his family, who had moved somewhat earlier, and apparently the families "knew (of) each other."

Shortly after her family arrived there was a "visit" at which the families attempted to introduce the two - kids of about 10 years old or so. He "resisted" the attempted introduction due to the matter of a rather large hole in the seat of his britches. His parents (possible with assistance from her parents and numerous "cousins"), in a blatently unsympathetic manner, presented his britches to the "young female child" who was given the task of patching them.

How they got his britches wasn't related in detail, although methods were suggested...

An apparently long period of overt hatred coupled with covert "interest" intervened, but eventually (about 10 years later) the two married.

Grandpa was known to comment "couldn't stop her tryin' to tease me, so I thought maybe if I married her she'd shut up." He may have been "partly serious," but obviously had noticed it didn't work.

Much much later, I can recall her saying something to the effect of "shoulda known better than to pay 'tention to a kid that couldn't afford a whole pair of britches," but I think that was no more serious than his comment.

John

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: GUEST,ally
Date: 11 Aug 05 - 09:11 PM

my mum and dads eyes met accross a crowded celidh room and from then on in it was true love...ahhhhhhh...how romantic...and then i cme along!!!

Subject: RE: BS: How Did Your Parents Meet?
From: Cluin
Date: 11 Aug 05 - 09:23 PM

They exchanged phone numbers and agreed to meet after the orgy.