The meeting of Meemo & Pop (Josephine K & Alvin T Scott)

Meemos Story as told to Debi in 2005 or maybe 2006?

Well, the year before, around February or March Dad couldn’t find a job so he moved out on this ranch that a friend owned. Dad was to raise chickens and turkeys and split the profit. The bus didn’t come all the way out to where we lived so I messed the rest of that year of school. The following summer it was decided I could go into town and live with a family and help with the cooking, kids and housework for my room and board, and walk almost a mile to school. About the last part of August I went to stay a week with a girlfriend. One of their neighbors was a dressmaker and she made me several new dress for school. My friends stepfather was named Milton Vivian, we was a supervisor for the county road department. He was Pops boss. The county roads weren't paved then, they were all dirt and had to be done quite often. The grading was done by pulling some sort of equipment behind a team of horses. Pop was driving the team. They happened to be working on the street that my friend lived on at the time I was visiting. Pop had seen me out in the yard, so he was asking his bosses 11 year old son Lester who I was and when he found out that I was just visiting there, he wanted to know where I lived. Lester came in and told me Alvin wanted to meet me. I told him "That's too bad, I'm not going out there to meet him". I had to go back and forth on that block several times a day that week to get my clothes that were being made fitted. I'd check out this young man that had been asking about me. He'd say "Hi there" to me, but I didn't speak to him as I hadn't been introduced to him, I'd just turn my head. Mr. Vivian had been trying to get Pop to go to church since he started, but he always had an excuse-like his sister was visiting or he had to work on his car. Lester told him if he'd go to church that Sunday that I would be with them and he could meet me then. The pianist was on vacation, so the minister asked me to play for the singing that night as I had practiced on the piano at the parsonage previously. So the minister asked me to sit near the front where I'd be near the piano. So, when Pop came in I didn't notice him come in, but the next thing I knew, here comes Lester saying, "Alvin, this is Josephine". Of course, I became embarrassed and self conscious because I had to get up and go sit at the piano and I knew he was watching me. After the service we talked a little bit and he asked when he could come see me. I explained that I lived way out in the country and was going home, but that I'd be coming back to town for school and I would get word to him then so he could come see me. I hadn't been allowed to date up until that time. I was almost 16. Dad left sensible decisions up to me when I went to town as he wouldn't be there. The first week of school a couple of acquaintances kept telling me about this neat guy that kept coming in to where they worked (a lemonade stand) and he kept trying to date them, but they both had boyfriends. I wasn't that interested about their stories. Later I found out that he had learned that they knew me from school and was trying to find out where I lived. But they weren't telling me that and weren't telling him where I lived. So, he decided he'd go to church the next Sunday, that either I'd be there or he'd find out from the Vivians. In the meantime, one of my close girlfriends came to visit me and I walked home with her to where she lived with an aunt and uncle who managed a hotel there in town. Pop and 2 of his stepbrothers-Lee & Red (Aubrey) Carpenter were riding in Alvin's car. They were parked on Main St and they saw me walk by and Alvin told Lee and Red that he was going to wait for me to come back by there and he was going to take me home. They bet him he couldn't. They they went with one of their friends that came along to go to the dance hall and left Pop there by himself. When I came back by, alone, Pop happened to be standing casually by his car and said "Hello there" I stopped and talked with him a few minutes, then he asked if he could drive me home. I said "okay". So on the way to where I was living-about 7 or 8 blocks, he went out of his way to the Red Wing Dance Hall. He had some excuse as to why he had to see his brothers at the dance hall. I didn't know til a year later that he did that to prove that he had taken me home. So, he asked me for a date. Our first date was my brothers birthday 10.7/1928. So, we went to a movie in El Centro, it was a brand new theater that had just opened and saw a new talkie-Al Jolson in the Jazz Singer. So we had a date every Friday night after that but we couldn't date on Saturday nights because I had to babysit the kids. Over a year later, the brother Red had married Nadine Rustin who I knew but at the time I didn't know she was Murdic Guests niece. I didn't know Murdic then. Red and Nadine were visiting Alvin and I. Red asked me if Alvin had ever told me about the bet they had about taking me home that night. I said "No, I hadn't heard anything about it" He had told Nadine about it a long time before that, so they got a good laugh out of embarrassing Pop. I never found out what the bet was. The jest of that story was that some people don't believe in love at first sight, but I do. Years later, when Pop liked to tell the kids and grand kids about us meeting and describing me I asked him what color dress I had on. He had no idea! He said I had brown eyes, long brown hair and dimples. And didn't know what color my dress was. After dating from 10/28/1928, we married 7/30/1929.