Meeting Bing and Bob

My grandmother Cordelia, my father's mother, met Bing Crosby and Bob Hope sometime around 1956, and to me it's a really interesting story. You can tell a lot about a celebrity's character by how they act when there are no cameras or publicity people around.

First, a little background. 

Cordelia Henderson was raised in a farming family in Hephzibah Georgia. She was a schoolteacher when she met Algernon Thompson in 1923. She was about 31 years old. My grandfather Thompson was about 35. Everyone called him "Thompson," including Cordelia. Below, a photo from their courting days. It was quite unusual for people in their 30's to get married back then. Usually people were married in their late teens or early twenties.

Thompson and Cordelia had three sons, Lewis, Bobby and Tony [my dad] and lived in Hephzibah. Grandaddy owned and ran a small country store during the Depression, and during WWII he worked at the Armory in Augusta.

Thompson had fought in France in WWI. Chemical gas was used during that war, resulting in a lot of casualties. I don't know if Thompson was exposed but he developed emphysema later in life, and he had never smoked. 

By 1957 he was very sick, too sick to go to my parents' wedding in February. He was in the hospital in Augusta and Cordelia had spent the day sitting with him. She left to go home and bathe and eat, and was walking out to get in the car when she saw two men nearby, wearing golfing clothes. Lots of famous people traveled to Augusta to play the Augusta National, home of the famed Master's Tournament.

To her astonishment, the men were Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, two of the most famous entertainers in the world at that time. Bing Crosby was her favorite singer. The two men chatted politely with her for a few minutes. They didn't have to do that. They took the time to be nice, and to interact with a fan who could do absolutely nothing for them. 

 

I love that story. 

Thompson died not long afterwards, and Cordelia died a couple of years later, but after telling my mother the story.  

In 1969, Bob Hope's daughter married Nathaniel Lande, a customer of Dad's bank. Mom and Dad were invited to the wedding, and they went. Mom got several funny stories out of all the celebrity encounters there.

In 1973 Bing Crosby died on a golf course in Spain.