Ben: How did you two meet?

Don: Hmm? 

Ben: How did you two meet?

Don: How did I commute?

Odell: How did you meet Billie?

Don: Oh, through my sister. She was working in the telephone office, not an operator, but in the office where they were taking care of all the business. And living in a house in Oak Cliff for Women, my sister lived there too. And when I came back from Puerto Rico I was stationed up at Ardmore Oklahoma and I came down on the weekend and seen my sister. In this house you had to stay in the living room if you came in, if a man came in because it was just women. So I was sittin there in this big room talking to Wanda my sister, Billie came bouncing in the door, she'd been out on a date with some guy. She knew my sister of course, a little bit. Wanda introduced me to her. We talked a little while, and next weekend I came in and went to see my sister again and Billie was there. So we went out and had us a coke, and go around town a little bit, in Dallas. Six weeks later we was married. Been married fifty-eight years.

Odell: A powerfull coke [chuckling]

Don: I came in on the weekend every weekend and spent time with a couple, they was about my sister's age. Went and stayed with them on the weekend. They didn't have any kids. So I stayed with them. Billie and I would go and visit with them, or we'd go out. They had what they call a drive in, sort of like Sonic, except that was all they had. They didn't have buffets like we have now. They did have some, but they was in town or something. But we'd go out and set in the drive in. Drink coffee, or coke or something, and talk til midnight and I'd take her back to the rooming house and go back to Cordia(?) to the lady's house and man I was staying with. Every weekend I'd come in and we'd go out on a date. I'd leave on Sunday night about 9 o'clock, go back to Ardmore.

We both, early on in the relationship said we're not ready to get married. She was -- I was twenty-five and she was twenty-three. We had an understanding we weren't going to get married, we're just -- cause I knew in a few weeks I was going to get orders to go to a factory school and then go to Tennessee in the Air Force. So after about four weekends we got a little serious about, talking about, what would happen if we got married, what would we do, and this stuff. So I told her, "well, I'm waiting on my orders." So we decided, well, maybe we'd get married in June. This was the first of April. No it wasn't, it was back in March because we got married on March 29th. Anyway, the next weekend I came in we made arrangements to come out and meet her folk. And when I came in on Friday night, we came on out here, stayed with her folks that weekend. And next day, I don't know what her dad and mother thought, but we kind of mentioned we was going to get married in June and [laughing] they didn't know I existed until that weekend.

So anyway, I went back, and doggonit if it wasn't about two weeks later I got orders. And came in on a Friday night and told her, I said, I've got my orders here. And we kind of had a little fight the weekend before when we got back from her folks. We had went out with my sister and a couple I was staying with on the weekend, and some more people we knew. We went to a place where they had dancing. And Billie -- I didn't dance, I told her that I didn't dance. She -- And this ole boy kept coming over wanting to dance with her, and she asked me if it was ok. And he spent all night til we left hanging around her. And I kind of got peeved a little bit, and I told her when we got in the car to come home. I said I didn't like that at all. And she said, "Well you didn't want to dance! And said it was ok!" But anyway, we kind of got in a kind of tiff. But when I got my orders, I came back down on the weekend and told her, I said I'm leaving next week.

And we got serious about getting married [chuckling], we got married the next week. I went back out and told her folks. We got the preacher from here in Tolar, and his wife, come to Dallas to marry us. And Billie's folks came over. And kin, aunt and uncle and cousin all came over. And got married in this couple's house. And that was it. We left that night for Ohio. Dayton Ohio. For six week factory school. Then went to Tennessee. And that was the beginning of it.