Emma Lee Fleming May →

Jack's Tribute to his mother on her birthday: January 6th.

Rummaging through a box of old photos and souvenirs, I came across a printed invitation. The card was the highest quality paper bearing the engraved logo of the Chi Omega sorority. The event was a formal dance at the Idle Hour Country Club in Lexington, Kentucky. The year was 1931. In faded blue ink, I could make out "Earl May" and signature "Emma Lee."

These were my parents. Closing my eyes, I was able to dream . . .

Emma Lee sat down at her dressing table and picked up a fountain pen. In impeccable artistic script with turquoise ink, she wrote an invitation to a sorority dance that weekend. Her heart beat a little harder, maybe even fluttered, and a smile spread across her face. She was in her second year at the University of Kentucky. She was an exceptionally pretty girl with honey-brown hair and a sweet "Mona Lisa" smile. It did not matter that she was an A+ student, she was lovely and adored by her friends.

She was intrigued with a young man she met recently at his ATO fraternity’s social. Earl May, the handsome son of a college professor and owner of a successful business in Lexington, had graduated from the university a few years earlier, but remained active in the social circles of the university and the city. He was well known as a dapper and stylish dresser, a great flirt, a wonderful dancer and quite a man about town.

His invitation was duly delivered along with others to the fraternity houses, and soon the acceptances came in. Earl was to be her date for the dance! What might this evening hold in store?

For Emma Lee, the week seemed to move slowly, but finally the evening for the dance arrived. She selected a blue dress that emphasized her model-like shape. Along with a bevy of her sorority sisters, she stood in the foyer of the Chi Omega house awaiting the arrival of their fraternity dates. Earl came in the door in his custom fit tuxedo looking like a magazine cover and sharing a smile for one and all.

He carried a single red rose. Their eyes met. Sparkles. There was no doubt that they would spend the balance of their life together . . . . And they did.