Chapter 17
Jack


1977
 
        I was still doing things together with Yoshiko and Marian Oaks. Yoshiko and I decided that we would try out the Church single adult dances up in Daly City. We went for probably a month but found the gentlemen that attended didn't have much to be desired, in other words, they were losers. Besides, it was a good distant to drive.

        Yoshiko suggested another single adult place that she had heard about where we could go and dance. It turned out to be both the YWCA and the YMCA close by in Palo Alto. So we went and the very first night found it to be a very nice place, all the people were very nice and respectable, and there also was no drinking allowed. They held ballroom dances every Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday nights. On week nights they played good recorded music and had a live band on Saturdays. The price was right, $1.50 with free one hour lessons included for the Tuesday and Thursday dances. Saturday night cost $2.50. The age limit was 25 and older and some were really old geezers who showed up. The dances would be at the YWCA one week and at the YMCA the next.

        We went to every dance and had fun in the Tuesday and Thursday night classes learning all the ballroom dances, Latins, waltzes, the swing, and the foxtrot. I loved the Cha-Cha-Cha. They had ladies choice, and mixers where you didn't know who you would end up with. I have always loved to dance, and done a lot of dancing but found out I didn't really know how to dance at all.

        Yoshiko and I both had no problem getting asked to dance. In fact I was always on the dance floor. The dances were in sets of three and all three were of the same type; the swing or whatever. You would dance with your particular partner all three dances. Sometimes I had a hard time remembering who I had the next set with. I was very popular at these dances. At last, I was no longer the wallflower that I had been before.

 
Ready to go to a dance at the Y
        Again, I met a lot of very nice people, both men and women. Both Yoshiko and I dated some of the fellows from the Y. But I didn't go steady with any of them. I did go out to dinner with one rich old geezer. He owned a jewelry business up in San Mateo or some darned place. Anyway he asked me to marry him. He told me he would buy me a lot of pretty panties to dance around in for him. I told the girls at work and they said, “Marry him! He will die off soon and you will be rich”. No way could I do that. One date was enough.

        I don't remember how many years I went to these dances. I had some long, pretty dresses that I wore to the dances. Some I had made myself, all the others I got on sale or secondhand as my budget wouldn't allow anything new. Some of the gals bought pretty nightgowns to dance in but they were not as modest as I was.

        I always kept my eyes on the door to look over every guy that came in, none of them added up. On a Tuesday night in June of 1977, it happened. In walked a new gentleman. He was a tall and very good looking man; a gentleman in every way. I knew he was the one and I had to find a way to meet him before another gal nabbed him.

        My chance came when they called a mixer. Only this mixer was different than any they had ever called before and as far as I know the last one. This mixer had all the gentlemen line up on one side of the hall with the ladies on the other. We had to walk backwards and who you bumped into you danced with. This guy that I had my eye on was clear on the other end of the hall from where I was. When the music started, I ran backwards crossing clear across the floor and he was the one that I got to dance with. So that is how we met. I didn't tell him that until very much later. He loves to tell that story.

        After our dance, I found out that his name was Jack Gilmour. His lady friend at the time sent him to the Y to take dance lessons. I was dating three different guys at the time that Jack walked in the door. One was a stuffy engineer, one was a Greek guy that still lived with his mother, and the other was a Russian. Quite a line up. Don't get me wrong, they were all nice looking gentlemen and treated me well. But they were history, just someone to go out with while I was waiting for Jack to come along!

        It took me a while to convince Jack that I was who he really wanted. We danced together at all the dances but it took him two or three months before he asked me out. I wasn't the only lady there that had and eye on him. Every time I left to go to the ladies room, when I came back there would be a different woman after him. I don't know what finally persuaded him to take me serious, but he did finally see me as I saw him from the very first sight.

        While we were first getting acquainted, I asked him about his family. He said that both his parents were gone. His family consisted of his two sons, George and his two sons, and Jack. He had one sister, Pat who had five sons, and one brother, George (Al) and his two sons. He also had one aunt and two cousins.

        I told him that both of my parents were still living and that I had six sisters and one brother living and a whole bunch of aunts and uncles and cousins by the dozen.


Jack in the Navy - 1948		 
        Jack was born in Seattle, Washington on December 19, 1926. He was the first child of George B. and Maibelle L. (Kimbro) Gilmour. He grew up in Seattle where he lived for 33 years. He had joined the Navy in 1948 where he served aboard submarines. (I must have a thing for sailors!) He got married in 1950 and three months after their first son was born in 1951, his wife died of Polio. He got out of the Navy in 1952 and went back to Seattle where he worked as a machinist for Boeing Airplane Company for the next eight years.

        He remarried in 1954 and another son who was born in 1957. A couple of years later, they moved to the San Francisco Bay area where he had worked in various machine shops. He and his wife were divorced in 1972. He had been single for about five years when he walked into the dance that night.

        Jack, a machinist by trade, was working in a little machine shop in Sunnyvale at the time, but was in the process of seeking better employment. He lucked out and got hired on at the Moss Landing Power Plant by the Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (P.G.&E) . His commute was 120 mile round trip over the Santa Cruz Mountains each day. Many times, it turned out seven days week and all hours of the day and night.

        He was living in Sunnyvale and I was still in Mountain View. I invited him over to dinner one evening. He arrived early and I was still on my hands and knees scrubbing the floor. (Another embarrassing moment.) He saw me as I am! I had prepared a chicken dinner. I don't remember how I fixed it, but I guess it was good because he hung around after that. We dated steady from then on. Now I had someone to bail me out went I got stranded by locking my keys in the car or something.

 
Jack and I at a Halloween dance
        We had a lot of fun dates. We went dancing and out to dinner. Sometimes we cooked dinner together. We went to plays, spent time with our many friends, and went on sightseeing trips. One such trip was a weekend getaway up north to Fort Bragg. Other times we went south to Morrow Bay. On one trip to Morrow Bay, we had the opportunity to take a whale watching boat trip out on the ocean. That was in February and it was so cold on the water that it took us all the way back to Sunnyvale before we got warm. It was worth it for we did see a number of whales.

        The rent for my apartment went up considerably and I could no longer afford it. Rather than ending up homeless on the street, I moved into his place at 1331 Kingfisher St. #1 Sunnyvale California.

        Now, on with my true Fairy Tale. This pretty middle aged princess, and her handsome middle aged knight lived happy ever after; after she got rid of his monster dragons! His apartment was decorated with two or three huge metal tool boxes plus other boxes and tools, tools in the kitchen, tools in the living room. What is a princess to do? The handsome knight rode off on his faithful steed and came back with a tool shed. We went shopping for furniture and found a lovely sofa and love seat set for a great bargain, plus other furnishings. In a short time, the dragons were gone and the apartment was lovely. We still have the sofa and love seat and a lot of the furnishings we started out with way back then, and they are not as baggy as we are.

        In 1977 we spent Christmas together and exchanged beautiful gifts. I gave him a gold neck chain. He has worn it ever since. He thought, “Boy, she has really got me chained down.” It was the first real Christmas I had since I left Burley. On New Years Eve we went to the dance party at the Y.


Daddy, not long before he
passed away		 
        It was on January 29, 1978, a Sunday evening, that Daddy passed away peacefully at 9:15 p.m. All of the family were there with him in his final hours but me. As I mentioned in this history before, he had suffered many strokes and never fully recovered. He had been bed ridden for many years.

        I flew to Burley on February 1st and Gordy picked me up at the Twin Falls airport. I didn't even have a decent dress to wear as all I had were my uniforms for work, pant suits for play, and formals for dancing. But I did manage to come up with a dress and a sweater. I was very depressed and sad as I viewed him in his casket. I felt that I would never be able to see my beloved father ever again.

        We held his funeral February 2nd at the Unity Ward building. The services were very nice and all the speakers spoke very highly of this good man. He truly was a giant of a man to me even though he was small in stature. The Relief Society ladies had a very nice dinner prepared for us as we returned from the cemetery. It was a lovely winter day with no storms and not very cold. Gordy took me back to the Twin Falls airport later that evening as I had very little time off from work. Jack did not have the privilege of knowing my father in this life, but he will still have the opportunity to know and love him.

 
Sheila Dudley
        Then came little Sheila Dudley on March 7, 1978. She died on May 13th of the same year. I think it was determined to be crib death. She died in her mother's arms. I did not get to see her while she was alive. I was able to go to her funeral, what a sweet little child of God.

        I thought it was about time for Jack to meet my family and for my family meet Jack. The Family Reunion in August seemed like a perfect time. When else do you get the chance to meet 150 people all at once who I hoped would become his In-laws. When we arrived at the reunion, I said, “Family meet Jack. Jack this is my family!!!” I wasn't sure how he would react as he came from such a small family.

        Eunice told me later that when she first saw Jack, she thought he was the most handsome man she had ever seen. After our reunion he took me to Seattle so I could meet his family.