First Date
by Leona Crawford
Many events in our lives have been important, but only to
us. The first was our first date (there must always be a beginning.)
We had met early in the year at a dance in the Oddfellow's Hall at Ottawa.
I had a date with a mutual friend of ours. About a week later I went
to my sister's in Western Kansas for an extended period of time and soon
I received a letter from Woodrow and I answered it. (I still have
those first few letters packed away in a box we haven't opened since we
moved to town.) In the last letter, he asked me for a date for the
Sunday Evening following my arrival home, June 24, 1940. I said "yes".
That Sunday arrived and by then I had committed myself to go with a group
of young people to a friends house several miles away near the town of
Williamsburg for fun and games in the afternoon. The roads in those
days were muddy when it rained (and it had rained), so it was sometimes
difficult for traveling. By the time we got home that evening, I
had only 15 minutes to be dressed for a date. I made it. We
went to Ottawa to a show "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" with Jimmy Stewart
and there was a second feature in which they sang "My Old Gray Goose is
Dead." It was nearly midnight when we got home after jogging along
in ruts in the road. He asked me out for the next Sunday evening
and we continued to date often to dances, to country fairs, to a picnic,
to more movies and occasionally Sunday afternoon drives. This first
date was important because it led to our being married on Dec. 28, 1940
at the Methodist Parsonage in Lawrence, Ks.