It was in June of 1947, almost 70 years ago, that mom and dad first met. Mom had just finished her sophomore year in high school and turned 16  in April. She’d just started a regular job as a waitress at Prince Castle, a local hamburger/ice cream joint. Dad was 23. He’d been out of the army since August of 1945, and settled into a job as a driver for Bradford’s laundry.

One day that June, he was at the Prince Castle restaurant picking up laundry, and he met mom. A couple of days later, picking up laundry, he met her again. They talked some, and he asked if he could walk her home from the restaurant that night. She said…..yes.  Mom got off around 11, and dad was waiting outside. Prince Castle was on the west side of town, only a few blocks from where mom lived on Chestnut Street. He walked her home that night. And the next night. And the night after that. They eventually started dating.

Now, dad didn’t know that mom was only 16, and mom wasn’t going to tell him. He assumed she was about to be a senior, or had maybe just graduated from high school. Mom didn’t tell him her real age, because she thought it would scare him off. She kept waiting for her mom (my Grandma) to say something, and she was ready for that – Grandma married my grandpa, when she was 16, and he was 26. Grandma never did bring it up…..;-)

They dated that summer, doing various things around town. And then dad asked mom if she wanted to go to the Illinois State Fair with him. It was downstate, but he had a buddy with a car who was taking his date to the Fair. If mom and dad wanted to, they could double date with them. They’d drive down early in the morning, spend the day at the fair, and come back that night. Mom agreed to go.

August 17, 1947 dawned and they headed to Springfield for the fair. They spent the day looking at the displays, riding the rides, and having a good time in general. Finally, it was time to return and they piled into the car for the long ride home.  

The ride was uneventful to begin with. Then, about half way home someone ran a stop sign on a country road, and T-Boned their car. The impact was violent, and completely flipped the car over onto it’s top . This was, of course, before seatbelts and they were all thrown about, as were their belongings. The four climbed out of the upside down car, and although they were shaken up, miraculously, all appeared to be unhurt. Dad, who would find out later that he had a small fracture in one of his legs, went out to the road to direct traffic around the accident.

Eventually, dad walked back over to mom and the car. Along the way, he found mom’s wallet which was thrown open and laying on the side of the road. Picking it up, he glanced at her driver’s license which was on the top of the wallet. Then he suddenly stopped, looked at mom, and exclaimed “You’re HOW OLD?!?!”

And that was how dad found out mom was only 16. It didn’t stop them from dating though, and they ended up getting married about 2 1/2 years later in May of 1950, a year after she graduated from OHS. Mom and dad remained married for 60 years, until dad passed away in 2010. 

 They outlasted the Prince Castle restaurant by several decades. After the restaurant closed, the building later served as a barbershop and a craft store among other things. Although the building is still there on West Main Street, it’s currently shuttered. I don’t know if it brought any other couples together, but I smile thinking about Bill and Gen meeting there in the summer of ’47.