Sentimental Sunday - How My Grandparents Met

This is the third Sentimental Sunday where I will post family stories as told to me by my mother and other family members. It is my attempt to preserve these stories so that they can continue to be passed down to my children and their cousins…the next generation of storytellers.


I love the story of how my grandparents met.  To me it is so romantic!

My grandmother, Martha Jean Stephens, graduated from Central High School in South Bend in May 1939.  After graduation she moved to Marion, Indiana to help her cousin Opal.  Opal's husband Charles had entered the service and Opal was left in Marion with their little boy. Opal was working nights so my grandmother moved to Marion to watch the boy while Opal worked.  My grandmother got a job working days in a diner downtown.

At the same time, my grandfather, Irvin Ora Stephens, was taking business classes during the day and working nights at the Spencer Hotel in Marion.

Each evening he took his dinner break at the diner where my grandmother worked and always had a piece of pie. 

Every day before she left work my grandmother set aside a piece of pie for the young man who came in at night.  A man she had never met.  Until one day when grandpa stopped in to the diner during the day to meet the women who saved him his piece of pie.

And the rest is family history!  They became engaged in December of 1939 and married 26 Oct 1940 in Marion, Indiana. 

My grandfather passed away in March of 1994 after 53 years of marriage.  Grandma lived until 2008 but she never really recovered from losing grandpa. 

Gosh, how I miss them both..........

(As you can see my grandmothers maiden name was Stephens and she married a Stephens.  So far we have found no family connection there but it made for extra explaining each time one of us kids or our kids had to do a small family tree for school! )