Thinking that I might get a more interesting story, I would ask other family members, and found a good reply from my own grandmother. It seems she and grandpa met at a "church social."

"What is a social?" My young mind of 6 could hardly grasp the idea beyond the word "church." Grandma smiled and put her apron aside, and by the hand she took me into the living room where she told me the story.

My grandparents had known one another from school. But in their day the boys were often needed to work on the farms, and the girls sometimes married young. But after grandma had completed high school she went to work at the telephone company in town.

Grandpa was a year older and he helped his dad with the farming, and he also worked at the hardware store and was a pretty good salesman. So as she explained, she remembered him from when he was in school, but he being older, she never really gave him any mind.

Until, one Saturday afternoon, after she began working at the telephone company, there was a "church social." There were a number of young adults who attended the Crook River Church and the pastor wanted to have a "get-together" for them, and a social was planned. Grandma said she wasn't expecting to meet anyone she didn't already know. There was a young man who had come to dinner a few times and she knew he came from good stock, so she expected he would be there.

She explained how she prepared a picnic lunch for two people, and that she had made ham sandwiches, pickled eggs, macaroni salad, and some apple pie for dessert. She also had some lemonade made with water from their well, which was always cold as Jack Frost.

On the day of the social, she wore her yellow gingham skirt with a white high necked blouse that had ruffles on the sleeves. At the top she had a beautiful brooch. Her long red hair was pulled back with a matching piece of gingham material and she always wore lavender scented toilet water that she bought at the town apothecary shop. She even put on a tad more that day and laced up her shoes before leaving with her parents. It was considered "good taste" if the young women were escorted to the church social by their parents.

Buggies and wagons were tied to a post or around a tree in the church yard. The young ladies met and talked together after taking their picnic baskets to a table where the pastor and his wife were taking charge of the event. This was the first "church social" grandma had attended with her own basket, and she said the young men weren't allowed to actually "bid" on a young lady's basket. However, the idea was for the young men to make a donation to the church and select the basket they wanted. At the same time, the young lady who made the basket went along to a spot nearby to eat lunch with the young man. It was all very proper she explained.

It seemed a bit confusing the first time I heard the story. But the more grandma told it, the more I understood, and as I got older I had the story down about as well as grandma did.

The one thing grandma always said was that she may not have known who the young man was that she would someday marry, but the Lord already had him picked out.

"Well, mind you I hadn't seen your grandfather except a few times in school and about town, and I didn't expect him to select my basket that day. I think my parents expected it would be the young man who had come to our home for dinner after church, but I was secretly happy it wasn't.

"We walked over to a shaded area under a tree with the basket, and I took the cloth out and spread it on the ground and the dishes and other fixings I had made. We talked for hours, and enjoyed a nice time together. It was getting towards sunset, and there were a few other couples left talking. The parents had all gone home, except for the pastor and his wife who were chaperones at the function. When your grandfather asked me if I'd like to go for a ride on the way home, and since he had a horse and wagon, I told him I would."

After that, they courted for about a year. Grandpa had asked for grandma's hand in marriage. She had been working right along at the telephone company and grandpa was working full time at the hardware in town. They both saved their money and grandpa bought a house on the property next to the farm by his parents, a mile out of town.

The wedding took place in the home of the bride's parents. Afterwards, family members joined together for a celebration with all kinds of good food. The bride and groom left with their belongings and the gifts that had been given to them and went right to their new home to set up "housekeeping." They didn't have a honeymoon. They had a lifetime for that grandma said.

She would also say that the rest is history. Grandpa bought his own hardware store a few years after they were married, and in another year my uncle was born, and two years later my mother came along. By that time grandpa had a good business as he had a large implement dealership as well as the hardware store. A few years later they bought a larger home on the main street of town -- the exact same house we were in when I spoke to her about how she met grandpa.

When grandpa was around and he would hear us telling the story he'd remark that he fell in love with grandma, her cooking and that pretty yellow skirt, and how it had been keeping him warm ever since. I didn't understand what he was talking about. He then walked into a bedroom and brought out a quilt. He said a few years after they had married, grandma made up a bunch of quilt patches and had included her church social skirt among the others. She called it her "Courting Quilt" and it had a lot of the pretty scraps from dresses and skirts she wore when grandpa came a courting.

I asked grandma if I would meet my husband someday at a church social. She said, "Perhaps, but you'll meet him when you are supposed to meet him, and that will be up to the Lord."