I wanted to be a nurse but I had two years of Latin and back in those days you had to have Latin. Oh, I just didn’t like it, so that’s the reason I took typing and went to secretarial school. And, I was in love…I couldn’t see going over to Columbus to school (Laughs). Eli and I met when I was about 16 and I was married when I was 19.

Well, Vanlue was playing football with Mount Blanchard. He was from Mount Blanchard which is just not far from each other. I was a cheerleader so I get to go to the ballgame.

So, my cousin, who was an Askam, my grandmother’s brother’s daughter, she was mad about this Eli. She wanted me to meet Eli, so, he happened to come to the ballgame and she introduced me and he said, “How about a date sometime?” Ooh…was she angry! She went running into the schoolhouse, “My very own cousin!” I said, “Well don’t blame me!” (Laughs), but he was shy.

He’d come past the house but if nobody was out, you know, so finally, when was it? At, um, oh the next spring when they have the commencement parties and stuff like that? I told a buddy of his who wanted a date with a classmate of mine, I said, “Ask Eli to come along with you but don’t tell him I asked.” So he goes right over and says, “Hey Ruth King wants a date with you!” (Laughs) So, that was the prom and then from then on we began to get together.

Yeah, I remember when I started at Findlay College he’d come down there at the dorm to see me and everything and I guess he did ask me one time and I was only 18 and I said, “No, I’m too young,” and it made him angry (Laughs).

But he gave me an engagement ring at Christmas time and my mother didn’t want me to have one so I kept it hid for a while! (Laughs) Finally then I – and she told me afterwards he was the best – I better not put that in here! (Laughs) I don’t want my sister-in-laws to hear it!

After we were married, we lived in a house in one room over at Lima. I was there for about two months. He was working in a sandwich shop in Lima, Ohio and he’d only been there a month when his sister wanted me to come and stay with her while she had her baby. I was only there about two months and then he moved back to Findlay and got a job. He eventually got a job with Marathon and we lived in an upstairs apartment and then I got pregnant and he got called to the service. We were married six months before the war started.