By the time Tom Monson entered the University of Utah at age 17, the Big Band era was in full swing and many social activities for young people included dancing. He remembers one activity in particular, the university's "Hello Day" dance.

He has good reason to remember it: It was at that social that Frances Johnson, quite literally, danced into his life.

He was dancing with a girl from his high school, West High, when he saw Frances, who was from East High School, dance by with a young man from her school. To this day, he remembers the name of the song that was playing: "Kentucky."



He doesn't describe it as "love at first sight," but he knew that he wanted to meet that young woman. "She was -- and still is -- beautiful," said President Thomas S. Monson during an interview with the Church News as he talked about their upcoming 60th wedding anniversary, which will be Oct. 7.

After the "Hello Day" dance, it took nearly a month for Tom Monson to actually meet fellow University of Utah freshman Frances Johnson. At a streetcar stop near the university, he saw her waiting with another young woman and a young man. Ever outgoing in personality, he greeted the young man, whom he had known in grade school, and, thereby, orchestrated an introduction to the young women. The four of them rode downtown together on the streetcar. As soon as he could, Tom looked Frances up in his university student directory. Wasting no time, he called her that evening.

Asked at what point he knew he wanted to marry Frances, President Monson said, "I don't believe that young men, when they're 17 and freshmen at the university, are thinking exactly about marriage. At that time, World War II was raging and all of us young men knew we had to go into the service sometime. In the Salt Lake school system, both Frances and I graduated from high school when we were 16. I turned 17 in August, she in October. We entered the University of Utah at that age as freshmen. The dating patterns then were not who you were going to marry, but who you were going to take to the prom, or to some other social event.

"We dated differently in those days. I dated different girls, she different boys. It was not a go-steady thing right off the bat, but I sure thought the world of her."

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