The Seven-Year Courtship

Reminiscence of Jim and Doris Greenacre

1976
Interviewer: Charlene Tresner

James Greenacre and Doris Brollier Hartwig were born within a year of each other and met in high school. As James recalled, "I was sittin' out on a pedestal on the sundial and I saw her. I went by and flicked her and said, 'I think you'll be my girl.' Then I got to thinkin' about it later and decided she would be."

After their first date, which happened months after the meeting near the sundial, they "more or less" went steady for the next seven years, which Doris conceded was "most unusual, according to the manners of today."

James admitted to "a little breakup here and there," but didn't think their long courtship was unusual for the manners of the time. "Well, we didn't have any money then, so about all you could do was wave at each other."

Nowadays, James said, people pay no heed to the advice of the past. "They don't wait to get married until you have enough money as we did," James said. "They just go on welfare."

(The Greenacre's interview is nearly 100 pages long and contains many details about the Greenacre, Brollier and Watrous families and life in Fort Collins in the early 1900s.)