How Did You Two Meet?

The other day, while trying to get some genealogically useful information out of Bob, I got him to talking about how he met Betty. He told me about how his boss had been going on for some months about knowing the perfect girl for him. That eventually led to her being invited to the party where they actually met. He saw her home after the party and they exchanged contact info.

Later, he called and set up a date to meet her for an actual date. In those days, very few people had cars -- and neither did he -- so he borrowed a car from a friend and a pair of roller skates from another friend because they were going to go roller skating. He went to pick her up at an ice rink where she was taking ice skating lessons (you know, like figure skating... not just the skate-in-circles stuff).


Well, the date didn't go as planned. When they got back out to the car where he had parked it near the ice rink, his borrowed car had been broken into (along with ALL the other cars parked in that whole block) and the borrowed skates were stolen. They spent the first hour of their date standing in line at the police station waiting to report the crime (along with all the other drivers). Then they went off to the roller rink. She went in to change and reappeared in a well-filled sweater, skirt, and tights. Woo-woo! 


Betty was in good physical condition. She wasn't just a skater, she was also a good swimmer and diver. She was good enough that Betty got a job working for Billy Rose's Aquacade in the 1939 World's Fair. She got to keep her job for a week before her father found out, came apart at the seams and made her quit. 


After the roller skating first date, Rader Bob saw her home and they agreed to continued to date. The problem was that, without a car, the commute to see her was l-o-n-g. He lived out near the end of one line and she lived out on a completely different line (he living in Queens, she living in Brooklyn, and no direct subway route between Brooklyn & Queens at that time), so he had to go all the way to Manhattan, change trains, and all the way out the other line... and back again at the end of their date when the trains were less frequent. This led to a foreshortened courtship and an early marriage.