How Did Your Grandparents Meet?

There is a current sitcom on television called, "How I Met Your Mother".  That reminded me of the story of how my parents met.  So, for the benefit of my children and their children I will tell what I know about how their grandparents met.

It happened in the early part of 1900.  My father, and their grandfather, Chester Craig Matthis worked in the office of the National Biscuit Company ( still in business) in Louisville, Kentucky.  At that time the  only telephone at the NBC was in my father's office.  If anyone wanted to make a telephone call they had to go to an inside window in his office to place the call.

My mother worked in another part of the office which had no phone.
By her own admission, she used the ruse of needing to place a phone call, in order to talk to a tall dark haired young man who worked in that office.    He was quiet and naturally reserved but she was not above making many trips to that window in order to start a friendship.  She told me herself that she would twist the phone line in order to keep herself there longer than necessary. She knew what she liked and she liked him.  It took several years of courting before they married.   He was obligated to support his parents Professor Charles Wesley Matthis and Jemima Jane Stuart Matthis.   The only way they could afford to marry was for them to set up housekeeping in the home where he lived with his parents.

After several years of courtship, they were married in the Lutheran church in Louisville, Kentucky in November of 1909. The pictures show them at the age of their marriage.  My mother was 20 and my father was 26.  I do not know if they were photographed in their wedding clothes, but my guess is that they were.  I am pretty sure that her clothes were made by her sister Amelia Marker who was an accomplished seamstress and earned her living by custom sewing.

My mother told me  that before they were married she knew she would love Chester's mother and entered into the marriage with that attitude.  However she had not reckoned with the strong willed and strong opinionated Jemima.
The old adage that two women cannot live under the same roof turned out to be prophetic for them.

Jemima did not welcome a new bride in her home where she had been in charge for decades.   The arrangement did not last too long as my father prudently found employment in another part of the state, where he moved with his bride.

His sister Kathleen was married to Dr. O.P.Nuckols in Pineville, Kentucky.We think he influenced Chester to go to Kentucky where the coal industry was thriving. Chester could earn more money there for a home of his own and also help out the old folks, as he referred to them.

As a side note, the first time I ever saw or spoke on a telephone was when I was around four, in1930.  My father worked in an office of the Harlan Fuel Company, a coal mining business.  Someone, I do not remember who, took me to his office.  While there,  he picked me up and held me so I could reach the black phone box attached to the wall.   The speaker was on the base attached to the wall and the receiver was on a hook on the side.  To place a call you lifted the receiver and put it to your ear.  Lifting the receiver was a signal for the operator to ask for the number of the party you wanted.  My father put in a call to  my older sister Frances in nearby Harlan, where she worked in a beauty shop.  While he held me in his arms I spoke to my sister for my first phone call. 

When we moved away from the mining camp and into Harlan,  the county seat, we had a telephone at home. I still remember the number there, it was 507.  My sister worked at her first job as a  switchboard operator. She sat in front of a large wall board and spent her day plugging in and disconnecting callers to the number they wanted.  Some customers shared a phone line.  It was called a party line and was not exactly private!

Telephones became very commonplace in our culture.  It makes one wonder how we ever managed without having the instant communication that we have today.  We mostly wrote letters, which we now refer to as snail mail.  Much has changed in over one hundred years, but human nature has remained the same. We still want to keep in touch with family and friends, we just have more options for doing so.  Our means of communication is considerably more efficient than using the wall phone that I first used back in 1930.

 My parents would love to be able to use the modern ways of communicating that we have access to today.  The wireless communication that we depend upon today would seem impossible to them. I can only imagine what my mother would think of to start a friendship in our modern world.  She would not be too timid to start the conversation, I feel certain of that.