Courting

Most of my family for generations came from Southeastern Kentucky. Part of the Appalachian Mountain chain runs through that area of Kentucky. I don’t know how the courtships of my grandparents and further back came about, but I imagine that proximity had a lot to do with it. Back in the day when travel was by foot, mule, or horse, and that travel involved traversing steep hills and mountains proximity was probably a huge factor in who was considered courting material.

It seems very likely that this was indeed the case for my paternal grandparents. In 1920, my paternal Grandpa Dave Smith lived with his family in residence number 90 on Sextons Creek Road; and paternal Grandma Nancy Middleton lived with her parents in residence number 92 on that same road. Being neighbors, the two likely had many interactions. Somewhere along the way, this led to courtship for on October 30, 1921, the two married. They would have had a loving relationship for over 66 years. Grandpa Dave died in 1978 and Grandma Nancy would die six years later in 1984.

                                                               

                                                   Young Grandma Nancy Middleton Smith 

                                         

 

                                                     

                                                              Young Grandpa David Smith

 

                                                           Grandma and Grandpa Smith
 

Every time I saw Grandma before she died, she would ask me, “Are you sparking yet?” That was Grandma-speak for courting or dating. I wish that I had thought to ask about when she began sparking and how she and Grandpa had gotten to know each other. Unfortunately, I didn’t know that one day I would have the questions that I have today. I was oblivious to the opportunities that I was wasting.

Now my maternal grandparents also lived in close proximity to each other. Today, if a person were to drive from where Grandpa Boyd Nolen lived with his family on Furnace Branch to where Grandma Rachel Allen grew up with her family on Teges Creek, it would take about fourteen minutes to drive the 8.2 miles. Of course, riding a mule or walking it would take longer, but you didn’t need a road for walking or riding a mule. You could ride over the ridge. It may have been less than the 8.2 miles it would take by road, but still would have taken longer by foot or mule. Still, at a time when travel was often by foot or mule that would have likely been considered a walk in the park.

Grandpa Boyd and Grandma Rachel must have met somewhere along the way as they struck up a courtship and wed in Oct of 1940. They would eventually live in Rachel’s home place where she and her siblings had grown up. Rachel bore nine children in her ten years of marriage to Boyd. Boyd and Rachel would remain married until Grandma Rachel’s death in 1950.

                                                               

     

                                                Grandpa Boyd and Grandma Rachel Allen Nolen                                       

                                                               

                                             

 When Rachel died, Grandpa Boyd tried to keep the family together, but he just could not do it. My mother Loretta and her baby brother Johnnie went to live with the family of Rachel’s sister Alta, who had gone to Dayton, Ohio for work. Alta had met her husband at work there in Dayton and had started her own family. Grandpa Boyd lived on until 1975.

 

                                               Alta Allen Cantrell and Olen "Bug" Cantrell

 

                                                 Alta Allen Cantrell and Olen "Bug" Cantrell

Now, my own parents, Donald and Loretta Nolen Smith, both spent their childhoods, living about seven miles away from each other in Kentucky. However, they would not meet until both lived in Dayton, Ohio.

Maternal Grandma Rachel’s brother John and their neighbor Robert were good friends in Kentucky. They ran all over the Kentucky hills of Clay County, Owsley County, and Lord only knows where else. Now Loretta’s Uncle John met Don’s sister Hortense in his ramblings with Robert. John likely met her at the church there on Anglin Branch. The church was likely the meeting place for several of the parties involved in courtships in my family.

 

                                                 Hortense Smith Allen and John Allen

So Great Uncle John and my Aunt Hortense ended up courting and marrying. They moved to Dayton, Ohio where Uncle John found work in the auto industry. Loretta had lived with her Aunt Alta’s family from soon after her own mother’s death. Alta and John were siblings and their eventual homes would back up to each other.

My dad would help his brother-in-law John to build his home and was very often there at John’s place. Now, John was my mom’s uncle, and she lived very near to him. It was natural for her to walk a few minutes to visit her uncle.

Now, Mom and Dad do not exactly remember how they met but I imagine that they very likely met while Mom was visiting her Uncle John and Dad was there helping John to build his new home. Just a short distance separated Alta’s home, where Loretta lived, from John’s home place. I imagine that it was rather exciting for Loretta to see the progress on her uncle and aunt’s home. I imagine that perhaps seeing her Uncle John’s handsome brother-in-law there helping might have added a bit to the excitement as well.

 

                                                   Young Donald and Loretta Nolen Smith

Well, Mom was a beautiful young girl and Dad was a handsome young man. They were, and still are very fine people, and they were often in each other’s presence. It is not difficult to see why they ended up courting. They did end up courting, marrying, and this year, they will be able to celebrate their 65th anniversary.

                                                  

                                                          Donald and Loretta Nolen Smith

Now, the courtship of my husband and me is the only one that I can be certain of. After graduation, a few of my classmates and I went to MTSU for college. My friend Carol was dating a friend of my husband’s and one day, she asked if I would like to go out on a blind date with her boyfriend’s friend. She and her boyfriend would go along; so it was a double date and blind on the part of my date and me.

So the first time that I met my future husband we went to a dance club in Nashville. My friend and her date loved to dance but I was not a dancer at all. My future husband and I ended up staying in the car talking. He is from Iran and it was interesting to learn about a culture so very different from my own.

When I was telling him about myself, I told him about my family. My Uncle Bug was dying from cancer. Uncle Bug was like a grandfather to me as he and Aunt Alta had raised my mother after her own mother had died. When telling him about Uncle Bug, I started to cry. So on my first date with my now-husband, I spent much of it crying. He was probably the first person that I had really told about Uncle Bug’s cancer.

After returning home, I thought “Well, that could not have gone much worse. I will probably never hear from him again.”

I was wrong. God bless him; he called me to go out again. That is probably when I realized he was a good man and from that moment I began to fall in love. I would years later overhear him talking to my family telling them that when I cried on that first date, he had begun to fall in love with me. He knew that family is important to me and family is also important to him. So the very thing that I thought would make him run was what attracted him to me.

 

                                          Young April Smith Hajjafar and Mohammad Hajjafar

After he finished his Master’s degree at MTSU, he had to return to Iran. The relationship between our countries wasn’t, and still isn’t the greatest. We continued our courtship long distance until he was finally able to return to the states and we could be married.

So over the generations, courting has changed a bit for my family. Courting, or sparking as my grandma called it, mainly took place between folks in close proximity, likely due to the effort and time required to travel further.

Today, travel is much easier. Folks can drive several miles in just a few minutes. They can even fly from one side of the globe to the other in a few hours. Communication over great distances has improved also. Back in the days of my grandparents, they had to rely on the mail if they couldn’t meet in person. Today, people can video chat on their cellphones, actually seeing the person they are conversing with.

So, technology has allowed sparks to flare over greater distances. A man born in Iran and a woman born in Dayton, Ohio can end up being married for going on 36 years. Grandma Smith would likely be surprised at just how far sparks can fly.

 

                                             

                                                                        Still a'sparkin'!