#52Ancestors Week 8: Courting

Question

From Amy Johnson Crow: The Week 8 theme is "Courting." Is it courting as in the law or courting as in romance? You decide!

This is for all the lovers out there.

Mmm....This week's theme is all about courting. Did your ancestors kiss on the dance floor at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance on November 12th, 1955? Or was Barry White playing on the radio? Comment below or post a blog about your favorite courting story! 

Comments

A chance meeting at a skating rink led to a lifetime of memories: https://allroadhaverhill.blogspot.com/2022/02/52-ancestors-week-8-courting.html

Answer 1

This is a page from a book that was given to my grandmother Pearl McCleery in about 1905. It was given to her by a man who was courting her.  They were very much in love, and I have several photos of them together. Her father did not want them to marry, since he wanted her to continue taking care of her younger brothers due to their mother's death. To keep her from marring him, he moved the family from Illinois to Oklahoma.

Comments

This is beautiful the page that was given your grandmother Alexis I remember photos you share of your beautiful grandmother she was beautiful

Thank you for sharing this wonderful page I love it

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Susan, thank you for your sweet answer and remembering my grandmother. Yes, she was beautiful and very kind, just like you.

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Lovely profile of your beautiful grandmother Pearl McCleery. The illustrated courting poems are fun to see.  As usual, Alexis, you inspire and entertain.  Thank you.

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Pat, thank you for your lovely comment.

Answer 2

For the subject of courting I chose my mother http://wikitree.com/wiki/Stielow-18.  Evelyn Stielow was courted by John Miller for two years.  He made a "private volume" of photos of her, proposed many times but she wouldn't agree but gave him much encouragement that if he was patient she would in the future.  He asked again on Valentine's Day 1942 and she agreed.

However, I am sneaking in another topic for Evelyn's profile. Under 52 weeks of photos "Hobbies" Alexis Nelson posted a photo of the lovely dresses her mother made.  It reminded me of my mother's hobby of sewing and so I added the text and photos this morning that I have been working on.  Alexis, I am so grateful to you for this idea.  It has made me realize how much Mom's hobby has affected my life and memories.

Back to courting, Evelyn's smile for John in 1940 from his "Private Volume" photo album.

Comments

Pat, your mother is just adorable and very photogenic. No wonder your father put forth his best effort to get her to marry him.

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Pat wonderful photo of your mother she look adore

Thank you for sharing

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Oh, Alexis, he even wrote to a local "Dear Abby" like columnist for advice.  I found the clipping and was chuckling.

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Susan, you can see my father's shadow on her coat.  Thanks for your comment.

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Her smile is just dazzling! This is a gorgeous photo.

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Thank you, Wendy.  In my father's little "Private Volume" he wrote under this photo: "That Ipana smile."  And I thought what on earth does he mean?  Looked it up and it was a type of toothpaste.  They had commercials for it on the Fred Allen radio show.  The point is my Dad saw the same thing you saw.

Answer 3

After my teta Samira passed, my mom and I were looking through the belongings she had in our house in the United States. She was a very private person and I never really was able to communicate well with her due to a language barrier. We discovered a small diary she kept in the year during her engagement to my gedo Morcos. As I do not have the diary with me, and since the diary was written in Arabic, I do not have too many stories to share. The entries appeared to be short accounts of the day. I recall one entry where they both went to a movie theater and watched an American film together. Even though I cannot read Arabic and cannot read the stories by myself, the very existence of the journal indicates that Teta clearly cherished her moments with Gedo even before they got married.

Comments

Brianna, thank you for sharing your wonderful story about Teta and Gedo.

Answer 4

Mary Hogan was a high-spirited, redheaded young woman in the 1920s.  Roy Purdy was a tall, slender, soft-spoken young man who was utterly smitten with her. Having scrimped and saved, in 1926, for Valentine's Day, Roy gave Mary a cedar hope chest with a hand drawn card.  Inside the card were words to the effect, "I've look East and I've looked west.  You are the one I love the best.  Will you marry me?"  She said yes and they were married in August of 1927 in St. Peter's Church in Boston.

Comments

Wonderful story, Dorothy.

Answer 5

My maternal grandparents had a very long courtship.

Nana (Wilds Emily Brown Brown-61410) and Alf (Alfred William Pilcher Pilcher-359) were courting before the start of World War I.  I am not sure when or how they first met, but they were both "in service" in London in the 1911 census, and that may be when they met.

After the war Nana was in service at Hever Castle, and Alf was driving double decker buses in London, and they often met on their day off.

But they did not actually marry until December 1923.

Answer 6

Here's  a picture of my grandparents, Dece Vander Bogart and Plina Lane, on their honeymoon. Plina's first husband died in May, 1910, only 7 months after their marriage, and she married Dece the following September, so their courtship was not very long, and probably not very romantic. They were plain country folks who never owned a car. But on their honeymoon they dressed in their best clothes and posed in the photographer's prop car.

Comments

This is great, Joyce.  So this prop cart is a painted cut out?  Or it's a real car?  Definitely interesting.  Thanks for sharing.

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Pat, when my father saw this picture, he said, "that's the photographer's prop. They never had a car." And that's all I know about the car. Waiting to hear from one of the car enthusiasts.

Answer 7

Since my mother died in 2020, I discovered a bunch of letters between her and my father written in 1947, a few months before they married, Mostly mundane things like how his socks were full of holes and she hasn't started darning them yet, or from him, how he hopes her newly compiled recipe book will have some recipes that he likes or there'll be trouble.
A nice little snippet about her cousin appearing in a play that he might like to go to (she obviously has a bit part as it says she appears laughing on page 97). Worries about having to live with my grandparents after marriage. Nothing of interest outside of the family, but it fills in a picture of their early life

Answer 8

When my grandparents Willie Larner and Amy Porter were engaged in 1914 in Bodham, Norfolk, England, Willie had to go off to work in Wales.  He sent Amy this postcard so she could see the church where their banns were called.

Comments

Lovely, Christine.  And a beautiful church.

Answer 9

I went in a different direction and wrote about a 'courting' in the legal sense. I wrote about a court case involving child custody.
https://familytreesandbranches.blogspot.com/2022/02/52-ancestors-in-2022-week-8-courting.html

Comments

I wonder what happened to Mary Esther, and if she grew up well after her parents' custody battle and divorce. I imagine that had to be traumatizing for her.

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I was thinking of her too.

Answer 10

Like K, I also wrote about a court case - my great-great grandmother being accused of assault against a neighbor: http://www.ourprairienest.com/52-ancestors-week-8-courting/

Comments

Your post made me laugh! You great-great-grandmother must have really been a character!

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I think she must have been! It would be nice to know more about her as a person.

Answer 11

Since I do #52Connections usually with families I don't really know much about, I had again to be creative about which profile to use.

I used "Court" in the juridical sense of the word. In the court there are also judges. The German word for judge is "Richter". So I chose to look for profiles with the surname Richter.

In the Unconnected list of the surname Richter there was the profile of George August Richter. Considering he was an infant who died after just two weeks of life, I only hoped to find a document that tells the names of his parents. FamilySearch had one. So I started to create a profile for the father. And suddenly I saw that the database gives me a profile which seems to fit to the father's dates I found on FamilySearch. So I clicked there and, voilà, it's really the profile of little George's father who already has his wife, George's mother. AAAAAnnnnnnd, the parents are connected to the Big Tree. So, little George will tomorrow be connected to the Big Tree.

Answer 12

My cousin John F Grismore was charged with possession of counterfeit currency and convicted. His case made it all the way to Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. I'm not sure if he won his appeal or not. According to the website Justia, his case was:

United States of America, Plaintiff-appellee, v. John F. Grismore, Defendant-appellant, 546 F.2d 844 (10th Cir. 1976)

Answer 13

My grandmother tells us that grandpa met her at the A Capella in Stuttgart, Germany. He whisked her away to the middle of nowhere Illinois and doesn't regret it.