Althouse: What did your grandparents look like on their second date?

June 13, 2011

What did your grandparents look like on their second date?

Like this?

22 comments:

DADvocate said...: My mother has some pictures of herself and her boyfriend on a date. He was home on leave from the Army. She was 16. They're in a field near Tulas, OK where she grew up. In some pictures she has on his Army hat.

The day was Dec. 7, 1941. An announcement came on the radio that all military were to report for duty immediately. Although he survived the war, she never saw him again. Graduating from high school, she went to Oak Ridge, TN to as a secretary in the Manhattan Project. There she met my father.

A few years ago, her old boyfriend looked her up and sent her poster size photos of that day. She was quite a looker back then. I could see why he never forgot her.; 6/13/11, 3:59 PM
Dustin said...: That photo is dramatic.

And imagine telling them it would be a discussion point in 2011.; 6/13/11, 4:02 PM
G Joubert said...: Here are my French grandparents, ... in the 50's for their second date.

My grandparents went on their first date in 1916. My parents went on their first date in 1940. Crikey I must be getting old.; 6/13/11, 4:15 PM
Patrick said...: Almost certainly not. I've got a few photos of my parents from back then. One photo of my dad in particular never fails to amuse me. He was quite dapper in the photo, and although he dresses neatly, he is never quite fashionable.; 6/13/11, 4:19 PM
Phil 314 said...: No; 6/13/11, 4:28 PM
The Dude said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/13/11, 4:32 PM
Anonymous said...: I am so old and feeble that my grandparents looked like this on their second date.

Peter; 6/13/11, 4:38 PM
edutcher said...: My grandparents, both sets, would have looked like the people at Grover Cleveland's second Inaugural.; 6/13/11, 4:44 PM
X said...: my grandfather was busy in mopping up operations after the French Resistance expelled the Wehrmacht.; 6/13/11, 4:50 PM
Penny said...: Splendor in the grass.; 6/13/11, 4:51 PM
Mary Martha said...: My family is generationally strange - everyone has babies in their 40s. That means that my grandparents first dates were in 1916.

I don't have pictures... but I do have their letters back and forth while my grandfather served in WWI. I also have the painting my grandfather painted of my grandmother while he was recovering from being blinded by a gas attack.; 6/13/11, 4:52 PM
MadisonMan said...: My grandparents married in the 20s. They didn't look like that.; 6/13/11, 4:55 PM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: I think our grandparents - and especially our great-grandparents -would be appalled at the way we dress nowadays.

Whether their shock is justified or not is another question.

If you look at pictures of the spectators at baseball games in the 1920s to 1950s or so, they were all wearing coats and ties and many had hats.

The hats were not on backwards.

Speaking of which: any male over the age of 21 who wears his hat on backwards should be shot.

On sight. No cigarettes.

Twice just to be sure.

If he's wearing shorts, his body should be stuffed into a cannon and shot.

Y'know, like the Czar?; 6/13/11, 5:11 PM
MaggotAtBroad&Wall said...: The go to site for vintage photos is Shorpy.

http://www.shorpy.com/; 6/13/11, 5:34 PM
edutcher said...: SMGalbraith said...

I think our grandparents - and especially our great-grandparents -would be appalled at the way we dress nowadays.

Whether their shock is justified or not is another question.

If you look at pictures of the spectators at baseball games in the 1920s to 1950s or so, they were all wearing coats and ties and many had hats.

The hats were not on backwards.

Speaking of which: any male over the age of 21 who wears his hat on backwards should be shot.

The angle at which the hat is worn is indicative of the manner in which the brain was installed.; 6/13/11, 5:42 PM
MarkW said...: I do have a picture of my grandparents from when they were dating (or maybe first married). It's a generation older than the 'French Grandparents' photo (~1930), but to my eyes, the relaxed intimacy of it has a more modern feel.; 6/13/11, 5:54 PM
Tyrone Slothrop said...: Handsome couple, but so were my grandparents. Joe and Mollie in college ca. 1916; 6/13/11, 6:06 PM
ricpic said...: That's a remarkable picture, Slothrop. Young women look so much more mature than young men.; 6/13/11, 7:10 PM
chuck said...: My grandfather was born in 1886

And the earliest of mine in 1868. I don't imagine he ever went on a date. He met my grandmother when she took care of him after he was stoned for preaching. It's a soft world these days...; 6/13/11, 10:10 PM
Bart Hall (Kansas, USA) said...: There are at least two people whose grandparents dated so long ago that photography was in its infancy.

I refer to Lyon Tyler, Jr., (born 1924) and Harrison Tyler (born 1928). Their father was Lyon Tyler (1853-1935) the fifth child of President John Tyler's second marriage. President Tyler and his second wife were dating in 1845.

Harrison Tyler maintains the family home, "Sherwood Forest" and still gives tours.

Can anybody else come up with a case in which two people alive today had grandparents who married more than 165 years ago?; 6/13/11, 10:13 PM
Ralph L said...: I have a couple of nice color photos of my parents on the breakers at Newport the day JFK was married there in '53. My parents married 2 years later, after a 3 week engagement.; 6/13/11, 10:42 PM
Jennifer said...: What a lovely picture. To answer your question, not really. The French are significantly more demonstrative than the Japanese.; 6/14/11, 12:45 AM