When Grandma Met Grandpa

Recently when my grandmother (Shirley Thueson) was in the hospital, I tried to visit as much as I could. During one of my visits the hospital chaplain stopped by the room and struck up a lovely conversation with her about Grandpa Orel.

Grandma has been widowed for about 17 years and it was special to hear her talk about working with him in the drugstore they owned in Placerville (he was a pharmacist) and about how they met.

(I don't know or understand all the details and timeline. Perhaps I'll come back and edit this when I know more. But for now I really just wanted to get this in print before I forgot.)

Apparently my grandma's mom wanted to throw a party but there weren't very many people around. (This was wartime.) She tried inviting the men from the Air Corp in Santa Rosa but that was a no-go. And so she ended up inviting the military men who were POW camp guards in Windsor. My grandpa was one of those men. Apparently they were guarding German submariners. (Grandma commented that they were beautiful blonde haired, blue eyed men. Lol.)

The rest is history, as they say. Grandma met grandpa at the party and were later married. So it was my great grandmother who is responsible for them meeting. By the way grandma chuckled, and from what I seem to recall my mom telling me when I was little, I don't think great grandma was too happy about that. You see, my grandpa was a Mormon boy, so that didn't sit too well with her.  😂😍

I'm sure glad Great Grandma threw that party that night!