How Did Your Parents Meet?

[+ Avalon]

My mother ran a boarding house.

 

Looks-wise my parents were opposites. My mother was blonde with blue eyes and my father had black hair with brown eyes. Though my father is 4th generation American he is of English heritage but with dark looks. My mother at first thought it was Italian.

 

I am combo of the two; I have / had brown hair and hazel eyes. My mother died when I was in my early 20s and my hair turned gray.

[bigvalboy]

My mother and her sister hosted a large garden party one summer. My father was invited. When my father was introduced to my mother, there were brief pleasantries exchanged. My father thanked my mother for hosting the party and walked away. My mother turned to her sister and said, "That's the man I'm going to marry." Her sister told her how ridiculous that sounded, and said, "You have no idea who you are going to marry." My mother said, "Oh yes I do, and I'm marrying that man"

 

They were married for sixty five years and inseparable, until my mother passed on at 93. My Dad was never the same. He died a year later.

Edited March 6, 2018 by bigvalboy

[TruHart1]

We have a family legend: My mom loved to go out to local dance clubs with her roommates/girlfriends and Jitterbug all night. She'd been going out dancing for years! One Saturday night, she decided she was tired of dancing with every man who approached her, which was her usual M.O. and would instead wait to dance next with the first guy who had his shoes impeccably shined. That happened to be my dad and they got married 3 weeks later. Thus I was born nine months after they were married!

 

TruHart1

[rvwnsd]

My parents met at work. My dad was smitten by my mother and she was playing hard to get. She was a master of the double entendre and would say things like "I have cookies, would you like some?"

 

Interestingly, I have a sketch he did while in art school. It is of a woman holding a roast turkey on a platter and a man admiring it. They man looks nothing like my dad, but the woman looks just like my mother. He made the sketch ten years before they met.

[Bearofdistinction]

She was a WAVe and he was classified as Required Civilian Personnel --

 

He tried to get her drunk - she out drank him and the rest is history . . .

[OneFinger]

My parents met when they were both cast in a play. They were married for almost 50 years (my mother died).

[+ Charlie]

My parents were introduced by sympathetic mutual friends after each had suffered a family tragedy: my mother's father died unexpectedly of heart failure the same week that my father's younger sister was killed in an auto accident. They dated for nine years before finally marrying.

[Traveler North]

My mother ran a boarding house.

 

Looks-wise my parents were opposites. My mother was blonde with blue eyes and my father had black hair with brown eyes. Though my father is 4th generation American he is of English heritage but with dark looks. My mother at first thought it was Italian.

 

I am combo of the two; I have / had brown hair and hazel eyes. My mother died when I was in my early 20s and my hair turned gray.

 

My mother came from Italy as a little girl and her father settled in the Boston area where he ran several businesses. My dad also came from Italy but much later. He served on the Italian army in World War 1 serving in North Africa and on the Austrian front. He also served as a gunner on the tri-winged planes used then. Upon discharge, he left his little farm village in east central Italy and moved first to France and then to Belgium from which he sailed to Ellis Island in 1920. From there he went to Buffalo where a cousin lived. In 1927 he went on vacation to see a friend in Boston and there he visited a family who had an unmarried daughter. That daughter, my mother, always said it was love at first sight. They had a beautiful marriage until my dad died.

[+ FreshFluff]

The Persian breeder introduced them.

[Rudynate]

They were both in the military during WWII. She was a dental assistant in the Navy and he was a Marine. At the end of the war, they were both stationed at the same naval base. He came into the dental clinic where she was assigned to have his wisdom teeth out, and she assisted the dentist who did the procedure. After that was done, he came back and asked her out. They had a whirlwind wartime courtship, marrying after they had known each other for six weeks.

[Gvtire]

At a party where my mom regrets going to till the day she died

[+ Summerson]

My parents were cousins, so they'd known one another all their lives. (It was legal for them to marry at that time and in our home state.) They were happily married for 28 years, until my father's death. I was only three when that happened, but growing up, my mom would always tell me she'd never had a stranger in her bed. As a kid, I somehow found that comforting. As an adult, I realized it mostly just sounds creepy - LOL.

[+ deej]

My grandfather introduced them.

 

He'd been buying a morning coffee at the general store near his current job site and mom was working behind the counter. He thought she was neat, so he brought dad to meet her.

[marylander1940]

We have a family legend: My mom loved to go out to local dance clubs with her roommates/girlfriends and Jitterbug all night. She'd been going out dancing for years! One Saturday night, she decided she was tired of dancing with every man who approached her, which was her usual M.O. and would instead wait to dance next with the first guy who had his shoes impeccably shined. That happened to be my dad and they got married 3 weeks later. Thus I was born nine months after they were married!

 

TruHart1

 

From who did you get those allegedly beautiful eyes?

[+ Avalon]

When my paternal grandmother turned 18 (September) her mother told her that she was not going to lay around the house and have her father support her this upcoming Winter. My grandfather was in his early 30s and still living at home. I don't know how their first date was arranged but my grandmother said that she was walking down the street with a girlfriend when she saw my grandfather drive by. She then remembered that they had a date and went back home. They were married in December that year. They had three children. They were married less than 10 years; my grandmother found someone else. My grandfather moved back home with his parents; he never remarried.

[+ purplekow]

My mother was a widow with a son. My father was a widower with a daughter. My maternal grandfather used to frequent the business at which my father worked and tried numerous times to get them together. My mother resisted. My father, a bit of scoundrel wanted nothing of a nice girl.

 

When hy older sister told my father she never saw him anymore, he realized his daughter needed a father and a mother. He resolved to speak to my grandfather.

 

Less than a week later, my mother was walking down the city street and was tripped by a jump rope. My father was standing outside of his business smoking and he caught her without dropping the cigarette.. He asked her out and when he came to pick her up, my grandfather answered the door. He said: "I guess you had to find her for yourself"

 

They were married 3 months later. I was born on the anniversary of their first date. My father died after 38 years of marriage. My mother would tell anyone who would listen that she had been a young widow and an old widow and being a young widow was painful but being an old widow was nearly unbearable. She lived about 10 years after his passing. I think she had some good moments among the unbearable ones.

[TruHart1]

We have a family legend: My mom loved to go out to local dance clubs with her roommates/girlfriends and Jitterbug all night. She'd been going out dancing for years! One Saturday night, she decided she was tired of dancing with every man who approached her, which was her usual M.O. and would instead wait to dance next with the first guy who had his shoes impeccably shined. That happened to be my dad and they got married 3 weeks later. Thus I was born nine months after they were married!

 

TruHart1

From who did you get those allegedly beautiful eyes?

LOL! My mother. She always had eyes which changed color depending on the color of her outfit, from hazel to green to blue to gray. Her father (my grandfather) had the clearest steely blue eyes (noticeable even in black and white photographs!) which I only ever saw in either b & w and color pictures since he died when I was only a bit more than a year old. That steeliness is what gives my eye color the "Husky eyes" look, with variance from clear green to clear blue, depending on what color of clothing I'm wearing!

 

TruHart1

[+ Italiano]

Back in Naples where they were born, my mother and a friend when they were 14 one spring morning of 1938 decided to skip school and went to a public garden for a walk. My father who was 17 did the same with a couple of male friends and when they saw the two girls they approached them, and playfully pretended to be school officers checking on girls who skipped school. They started to talk and sort of started to "date" as school youngsters.

My father in 1942 left for WWII and was first relocated in North Africa and then became a "war prisoner" in USA for 18 months. After a few initial letters my mom didn't receive any news from him anymore, and at one point she even received the news that he had died.

When my father came back to Naples in 1945 they accidentally met in the street, my mom couldn't believe her eyes obviously!

They started to date again seriously, they got married two years later, got 4 kids (I am the last one) and they became inseparable until my father passed away in 1995.

[+ Charlie]

My grandmother was sort of a wild child. She was orphaned at 3, and put in a NYC orphanage. After a few years, she was taken out and sent to live with her much older married sister in Bermuda. In her teens she become romantically involved with a well-known married man in the community. Her scandalized sister shipped her back to NYC, and she was met at the ship's landing by her 20 year old brother and his new wife, and his wife's 30 year old brother. The 30 year old saw the 17 year old, and fell in love immediately. Within a couple of months they were married. The marriage lasted till his death 25 years later, and produced six children.

 

As an attractive young widow, my grandmother "dated" a number of men, and eventually married an elderly widower for whom she was working as a housekeeper. His outraged grown children accused her of using him as a meal ticket, but it was actually a love match till his death. Even as a 60-something grandmother, the two-time widow still attracted male admirers, and had a few younger "boyfriends," with whom she canoodled, mostly behind their wives' backs. I used to stay with her when my parents went away on vacations, but my parents would never have let me stay with her if they had known what their innocent child learned there.

[+ Avalon]

I said my paternal grandparents divorced and my grandfather moved home with his parents. My grandfather had three siblings (two brothers and a sister). His mother died on Christmas day when he was 5yo; a few weeks after his mother had given birth to his brother. His father then married his late wife's sister. They had no children.

 

My grandfather's sister was helping her mother in the kitchen and her apron caught fire (wood stove) and she burned to death. One brother drown leaving a pregnant widow. And his other brother died being ground in a dredger. So my grandfather was the only one to care for his aged parents. His father died first. When his aunt/step-mother became ill he hired a housekeeper. When she died the housekeeper told him that they should get married; he would have none of that. By then his daughter (my aunt) was divorced with three children and had them move in with him.

[Rudynate]

My mother was quite dissatisfied with life, and always pined after nicer furniture, a bigger house, a better neighborhood, a more dynamic husband, being surrounded by a better class of people, and so on. When she could no longer live alone, we placed her in an independent living facility that was part of the Geriatric Care Center at Emory University. She was eaten alive with anger at having been "put in a home," and so failed to realize that she had achieved her dream of hanging out with a better class of people. She was surrounded by retired academics, military officers, C-level executives, clergymen and their spouses. I always enjoyed visiting her because the other residents were so interesting and nice. There was a retired philosophy professor who had a real shine for her. When I met him, we just clicked and had a long satisfying conversation. She told me that he was eager for my next visit so we could spend some more time together. And I felt the same way. Alas, he died before I could make it back there.

[+ sniper]

My mother and her cousin introduced each other to a guy they had previously dated. Both got married. I THINK but am not sure my father and the other guy knew each other already.

[+ sniper]

My parents were cousins, so they'd known one another all their lives. (It was legal for them to marry at that time and in our home state.) They were happily married for 28 years, until my father's death. I was only three when that happened, but growing up, my mom would always tell me she'd never had a stranger in her bed. As a kid, I somehow found that comforting. As an adult, I realized it mostly just sounds creepy - LOL.

How old when they got married that she had you after 25 years of marriage? Did they, um, HAVE TO get married?

[+ Kman]

My parents met when they were in junior high (my dad had just moved to her town), apparently it was love and first site...both very intelligent and weird by the stories my Grandma told me but that all went down hill when my mom got pregnant with me when they were 16.

[+ Summerson]

How old when they got married that she had you after 25 years of marriage? Did they, um, HAVE TO get married?

Ah, the math question. Mom was 20 when she married, Dad was 22. They did have my oldest brother about a year after they married, with my sister and second brother following in the next few years. My siblings were 25, 22, and 18 when I was born. Mom was 45 and Dad was 47. Finding out I was on the way was more than a bit of a surprise.