The first date

It was a Saturday night in the late summer of 1932. Lois and Gordon were both 18. As was typical in that era, when the weather was clear there would be a Saturday evening ballgame followed by an outdoor dance. They were major social events for the community, and for the young people in particular....

On this evening, Gordon played ball for Number 7. Lois had come to watch the game with her father, Bob Hearn. After the game, as Bob and Lois walked toward the car, Bob stopped to chat and Lois ran into Gordon.

"Lois, save me the second dance" Gordon said. "If you want to dance with me, you'll have to come down to dad's kitchen" she replied. "Why, aren't you going?" he asked. "No." "Will you go with me?"

Lois agreed to go to the dance that evening, and Gordon came to pick her up in the family car. He was wearing plus fours (trousers that came down just below the knee and were worn with knee socks) and a rust coloured sweater. Lois thought he looked wonderful.

When Lois and Gordon arrived at the dance, one of Gordon's cousins, Merv, called out to him. "Does your mother know you're out, Gordon?" Gordon was angry and humiliated. He spoke under his breath. "The ignorant bugger."

Introductions: Lois and Gordon

Hello everyone! Welcome to our family blog! This is a little experiment, and part of a larger project headed by Lou .... We were at Grandma Lois' this past Saturday, brainstorming for some ideas on how to make Lois' 95th Birthday project a little more accessible to us all, regardless of where we are.

The idea is to have weekly posts with pictures from Lois' and Gordon's past and present, accompanied by a story. Jessica and Bob are administering the site at the moment, so if you have ideas for posts, questions about people, places, or things that relate to Lois and/or Gordon that you'd like to see, send them to us. We'll see how it goes!

Now, on to today's story:

In the summer of 1937, Gordon invited Lois to go on a day trip to Niagara Falls. This was before Gordon and Lois were married. Gordon didn't have a car of his own so he had to borrow his parents' car, which meant his parents wanted to come along too.

Lois' mother had been dead now for four years. Lois was acting as mother to her five brothers and one younger sister, two of whom were under the age of five. It was a real treat to have a day's outing. Lois had no money, but she wanted something special to wear for her day away from home. She knit herself a dress, especially for the occasion.

At the time, Gordon was working at his first teaching job at the Black Creek school near Sebringville, just outside of Stratford, Ontario. Gordon had little money, but he had enough to put gas in the car to get them to Niagara Falls. Gordon's father Jack, on the other hand, had even less money than Gordon, and felt this fact keenly. When Gordon, Lois, Jack and Binnie (Gordon's mother) stopped to fill the car with gas along the way, Jack wanted to be able to pay for the gas. Gordon slipped the money to Jack, and Jack proudly went in to the station and paid for the gas himself.

We're not sure who owned the camera, but Gordon likely took the picture of Lois.