Mel meets Trudy and then Trudy meets Mel

Have I told you about how Grandma and I met? She didn’t want to date me at first. And I almost gave up on her. Our first date was a blind date. Well, sort of a blind date. A friend of mine told me I should go on a date with this girl he knew and that she was in a play so I could go see her in the play and then decide if I would go on the date. I went to the play and I decided she was cute, so I’d go on the date. But after that I asked her out three more times and she said no, and I told myself I would ask her out one more time and if she said no I would forget about the whole thing. Well, I asked her out and she couldn’t go because she had to do something with her family but she asked if we could go out some other time. So, we went some other time. And, yes, the rest is history.

Grandpa’s version of the story isn’t even the Reader’s Digest version, it’s just plain not true! Grandpa’s friend was dating a friend of mine and she asked him if he’d like to go out on a date with a friend of her’s, me. Grandpa said probably, but he’d never met me and I was in a play in town so my friend told him to come to this play on such and such a night and he did and I guess he thought I was cute because he agreed to go on the date. So, it wasn’t really a blind date. I agreed to go on the date. And he was late. Really late. So late that my mother told me I couldn’t go out on the date with him anymore because I shouldn’t be dating any boy who showed up to pick me up so late. Well, he eventually showed up with my friend and my mother did let me go out with them; it was a group date, after all. We didn’t go out on single dates, and I was really friends with Grandpa’s boy friends anyways. Grandpa was really shy. I was dating another boy at the time so if Grandpa called and I was free I would go out with him, but if he called and I already had plans, I would just say no. On that first date—it was Halloween—we went to a dance—that’s what we did then, went to the movies or went to dances. Grandpa was not a good dancer, and I love to dance. The whole time we were dancing he was making noises in my ear, like clicking noises with his mouth. So from then on any time he called to invite me to a dance, I said no; but if he called to invite me to the movies, I said yes. Well, this went on until March when I guess Grandpa had decided that he was only going to call me one more time and if I said” no” again he would never call me again. It must have been around March 19th because I couldn’t go out with him because it was my father’s birthday. But then I called him back the next night—and I did not call boys—to tell him that I would like to go out with him some other time. So, he invited me to go sledding. And that’s when Grandpa’s personality really came out. Tobogganing, he was having so much fun and laughing and joking around. We went to dinner and then to a movie, and by this time I was really tired. During the movie I rested my shoulder on his head and he thought, “Ah-ha, she’s interested!” After that day I really decided that I wanted to spend time alone with him. Before, when we’d go out on dates, I would hurry and slip behind the screen door when we said goodbye so I wouldn’t be alone with him, but now I started to wait outside the door. He kissed me, we began to spend a lot of time together, and things just clicked. I got my ring in July. I went to the temple in September. And we were married in October. And, yes, 55 years later, the rest is history.
[Grandma, as told to her Granddaughter]