Lois is a very social person. Her unique capacity to reach out and to connect with people, has meant that her friendships are often solid and long-lasting. As a teenager two of her good friends were Mary Riley and Helen Teahen, both girls she went to school with at # 9. Here is a picture of the three of them in the summer of 1930 when Lois was 16. Lois refers to Mary Riley as her best friend in those years. Mary came from a large family which, like Lois' family was poor. Mary's mother had died early and "Grandma Riley" had taken over as mother. After finishing high school Mary took a business course in London and, it was there that she met George Grant who was "a Protestant". Of course Mary was Catholic and in the 1930's in Perth County there was a strong bias against interfaith marriage. In spite of possible objections, Mary and George did marry and went to live in Chicago.
The second picture was taken on a Sunday outing to Grand Bend also in 1930. Lois' date on this occasion was Earl Boyes, a farmer, two years older than Lois. He lived with his mother and step-father on the homestead near Sebringville. They went in Earl's car. While they certainly did not go swimming at the Bend, they did walk around and got someone to take their picture. Sixty years later when Lois and Earl were both widowed, they remained good friends and frequently got together to play cards, to go out to eat, or to take drives
through the country. The couple on the right of the picture is Florence Bell and Ting Murray. They later married. Ting and Florence lived on the home farm within a few miles of Gordon and Lois and the two couples often went dancing at Lakeside. Like Lois and Gordon, Ting and Florence were great card players. The two couples established teams with Lois and Ting on one team and Gordon and Florence on the other team. They played cards at least once a week. They kept track of the hundreds of games they played, and at the end of December they declared a winner for the year. In one year Lois remembers that there were only 2 games separating the teams. Ting was an excellent card player and his comment: "Just take a smoke, Lois" was a signal that he wanted to play a lone hand. It was not unusual, Lois recalls, for Ting and Florence to arrive soon after supper on a Saturday night so that the two couples could play a few games of cards before driving to the dance at Lakeside. After the dance they would return and play more cards. By then it was likely 2 a.m. and, of course, they all had to be sitting in church for the eleven o'clock service the next day.The couple in the middle of the picture is Helen Lang, another good friend of Lois', and Slim (Melvin) Murray, a cousin of Ting's. The Langs lived down the road from Lois, and Slim lived near Ting's on the road behind Earl. Lois remembers Slim as a "lovely dancer."
