SENIOR CHAT

Ithought I knew what I was doing. The plan: Every month, visit one of the local centers in Wabash, Edwards and White counties where some of the most interesting people in our area live. Ask them a question, get a picture and a quote from several people.

For this issue, the topic would be telling me about their first crush. It would be great!

But then I met them. And I joyfully went off the rails and developed a crush or two of my own. I visited Acorn Estates Supportive Living Center in Mount Carmel.

••• V erneta Ross, 91, a native of Owensville, Indiana, is a die-hard Indiana University fan. Basketball, I’d bet. I asked her to tell me about her first crush.

“I’m not telling you his name,” she said. “I was in junior high, about 13. He played basketball and I’d go every night that he played, and he walked me home. We held hands and sat on the porch. He was just a friend and I liked him. We liked each other for a while, then he liked a dark-haired girl, and anyway, then I had a boyfriend from Johnson. He was good looking. Both of them were.”

And, in case you’re wondering, she added. “No, I don’t have any crushes now!” ••• B ill McCorkle, 97, a native of Fox Island in White County, was waiting for Frances, 96, his bride of 78 years, to return from a hair appointment with their granddaughter.

Norma Slinkard of Crossville was his first crush when he was about 16. “I went with her for a good while,” he said. “Dad would let me drive to Crossville, but I always had to bring the car back home with a quarter of a tank of gas in it.”

But Norma wasn’t the true love of his life. “My wife is. Frances Grimm. We went to school together. Her folks lived in the river bottoms with us for about a year. My uncle married her sister.”

While we waited for Frances to return, Bill told me about his life farming along the Fox River since the age of 7. He worked many other jobs between farming seasons, hauling fuel, oilfield work, washing dishes at Robb’s Cafe in Crossville (where he tore his apron off and quit when he was chastised for coming to the front to lend a dollar to a friend).

“We lived in an old room on my grandma’s house when we were first married,” he said. “I had to prop the stove up with a box to get it level. Later we lived in a rent house in the bottoms.”

Turns out, Bill and Frances knew my Phillips Township grandparents, George and Thelma White. They regularly attended Phillipstown Methodist Church (one of my many childhood Vacation Bible School experiences).

Eventually, the McCorkles moved to Wabash County, where he continued to farm and served as road commissioner. Bill talked about his woodworking hobbies, making toast-grabbers and painting wooden creations.

When Frances returned, I asked her. “Did you have a first crush other than Bill?”

“Oh, well, no. We’ve known one another since we were kids in school!” she said.

“Can I get a photo?” I asked, expecting to get a quick snapshot of them seated in their matching recliners.

Bill looked at Frances. “Come over here and sit on my lap!”

••• I mogene Taylor, 98, remembers her first crush with a Lebanon School District mate. Growing up in the Four Dice Bottoms community between Bellmont and Lick Prairie, she said her first-grade teacher was also her seventh and eighth-grade teacher.

“She was keeping a relative,” she said. “He was my first crush. Until he was killed.”

Taylor said her beau was 18, working on a threshing crew when a steam engine-operated threshing machine exploded and killed him.

“We never really dated. He didn’t have a car. He rode a bicycle. But we did a lot of writing notes to one another. He told me that when I was 19 he wanted to marry me. We thought it was real.”

The only other man she dated, she married. Leland Siefferman, the father of her four children, passed away after 44 years of marriage.

“I was a widow for seven years,” she said. And then she wed her pastor’s son-in-law in a marriage that lasted 23 years. “He’s been gone eight years now,” she said.

She’s not looking to marry again. “I’m a happy person. I’m content. I have a wonderful relationship with my Heavenly Father!”

And then we talked about Jesus, her children who stay in close contact with her, books, and more matters of faith.

I took her picture and to me, her face just glowed with peace and contentment.

She had me laughing with tears welling up in my eyes all at the same time. Afraid that she would miss her lunch if we kept talking, I rose to leave, but she took my hand and we prayed together first. Made my day. I can’t wait to do it again.

Imogene Taylor

Bill and Frances McCorkle

Verneta Ross

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