A True Story

Sometimes I remember things from childhood or I remember things told to me by my grandparents and I keep thinking I should write these things down for my children. They might not care about it now, but in the future, these are things they may want to know.
When I was a young teenager, my grandmother (my mother's mother) told me this story about how she and my grandfather met. It sounds like something in a romance fiction novel, but it is a true story.
My grandmother was born in 1900. Therefore, World War I started during her teenage years. My grandmother and some of her girlfriends made sandwiches and took them to the train station in a nearby town to give out to the soldiers leaving for war, so they would have something to eat on their trip.
A young solder walked up to my grandmother and said to her, "You are the most beautiful girl I've ever seen. Will you wait for me?" She had never seen him before. She said she would wait, and they exchanged addresses, etc. and wrote to each other during the war. I remember asking her, "Why would you agree to wait for this man when you just met him?" She said, "Well, he was very good-looking, and I thought that since he was going away to defend our country, it would be impolite of me to refuse him!"
Of course, you can guess how the story ended. They got to know each other very well while writing back and forth. When he returned home from the war, they got married and, as the saying goes, "...lived happily ever after."
Here is a part of the story I think is most interesting. My grandfather was very much a romantic. When he returned from the war, he wanted to marry my grandmother on the very spot where he first laid eyes on her (love at first sight). In planning their wedding, they went to the next town (where the train station was located) to determine where the "spot" was where he first saw her. However, when they got there, they discovered that the train station had been torn down and a new one was built nearby. There was now a city park where the old train station once stood. With much thought and measuring, my grandfather calculated the spot where my grandmother stood the first time he saw her. A few weeks later, they met the preacher on that spot and were married there.
One other interesting tidbit: they had planned a private, intimate ceremony--bride, groom, and preacher. What they didn't know was that an "all day singing and potluck picnic dinner on the ground" was planned that day in the park. While my grandmother and grandfather were getting married that morning, people started gathering for the picnic. As people realized what was going on, they entered quietly behind my grandparents. When the ceremony was over and my grandparents turned around, they were very surprised to see a crowd of people, standing there quietly, watching them get married! Everyone applauded, to the embarrassment of my shy grandmother. My grandmother turned to her new husband and said, "Oh Howard, they saw us!" (I can still remember her expression when she told me this story--she was STILL embarrassed--as if people had seen them naked or something!) Then the newlyweds were invited to stay in the park for the singing and dinner. They stayed! My grandfather led several songs (he was a church song leader) and the people there shared their picnic lunches with them.
I just love that story.