Love Story

I've been looking through old pictures again, separating them into catagories and trying to identify people I don't recognize. I happened to notice these pictures of my maternal Grandparents, Roy and Blanche Tilden. I love the way they look at one another.......

My Grandfather's parents were farmers in Benedict, Nebraska. They had five sons and one daughter. It became a tradition for the young school teachers to board at the big old Tilden farm house, and it was only natural that several of the young men married school teachers. When my Grandmother came to teach in the one room school house at Benedict, she also stayed with the Tilden family in the roomy farmhouse. She and my Grandfather formed an attraction, but before there could be any talk of marriage, her family decided to emigrate to Wyoming. Blanche with reluctant loyalty, went with them, making the journey to Cody Wyoming in a covered wagon traveling through Yellowstone Park. After they got settled, she went to work teaching in another one room, country school house.

Grandma Blanche used to tell about the borrowed horse she rode to school and back. This horse knew how to "take the bit" and she found herself helpless when, as soon as she was in the saddle he would run full tilt until he came to a gate where he would slam on the brakes, wait for her to open and reclose the gate, then take off hell-bent-for-leather for the next gate. I don't know if she had to dismount at every gate or if she was able to open and close them while remaining mounted. I wish I had listened more carefully to my Grandmother's stories!

The romantic part is that my Grandfather after mooning about the farm for awhile, saddled a horse and followed his heart to Wyoming where he and my Grandmother were married.

They returned to Nebraska where my Grandfather took the job of Postmaster of Benedict (I believe it was Benedict.) In a few years they were the parents of four small children and barely scraping by. They decided that my Grandfather should go to college to become a Veterinarian. With help from his family who gave them a little house in back of the newer farmhouse and cared for the four little children while my Grandmother taught school and my Grandfather was away at school, they made it through the four years it took my Grandfather to get his degree.

Look at the way they look at one another, standing hands entwined while he proudly holds his bag of Veterinary medicines.

And here they are when they were in their late fifties or early sixties, still gazing into one another's eyes

They were the kindest, most hard working people I've ever known and I still miss them.