Courtship Written by Mary Kessler Gawthrop Grandmother had a lot of funny notions; a girl must never cross her legs and to whistle or laugh loud was out. Yet Grandmother had some dirty words that to this day (and I’m past 73) I’ve never said and wouldn’t think of. Ada and I came to Grandfather’s almost every summer to help in the hayfield. I hauled hay shocks and Ada carried drinking water to hay harvest hands. At 14, I met Frank here on Muddlety. His father had a saw mill up the creek two miles. We had gone up to the school house to Sunday School with our Grandfather and Frank sat on the seat behind Ada and me. He had seen us down in the meadow driving in Grandmother’s turkey hens with their chicks and he asked me if he could walk home with me and help bring in the turkeys. I said, “Yes” so that was the beginning of a friendship that hung on for six years before we were married. I saw Frank once the year after we met and he and Ford came to Cowen for 4th of July. Our first years correspondence was 2 or 3 picture postcards, second and third years I’d cut letters maybe once a week and once or twice a year I’d see him as they were then living in Fayette Co. and it was quite a long drive in a buggy. The next two years, I heard from him by letter at least 3 times a week. He was in Huntington then the last year a letter a day from Cincinnati where he was studying telegraphy and bookkeeping. Our real love affair started after we were married, I’d been taught never to let a boy pet and it really took for I was scared even of a hand on me let alone a kiss. Frank respected me and behaved well. Actually we didn’t know each other too well since he never came more than twice a year.