‘We Were Always Together … We Were in Love And Making Plans For Our Future’

BY JE’DON HOLLOWAY-TALLEY | Special to the Birmingham Times JANICE & VILGIL VANCE Live: Helena Married: Sept. 30, 1978 Met: In 1964, at Zion Lutheran School in Bessemer, Vilgil recalls meeting Janice in kindergarten saying he had a crush on her way back then. “I used to like looking at her long ponytails,” Vilgil laughed. However, Janice remembers their first meeting in their neighborhood on the north side of Bessemer while hanging with her cousin. “[Alfred and I] started liking each other at age 13, Vilgil was best friends with my cousin, Alfred Moore” Janice said. “When [Alfred and I] would hang out, and Janice would be around, I could tell she was interested because she would walk to the [neighborhood store] every day, looking cute dressed in her halter-top, and she did that because she had to pass my house on the way to the store,” Vilgil remembered. “And then when my parents moved us [to the Burstall neighborhood in Bessemer] they gave me and my siblings a little going away party and I called to invite Vilgil to the party and he asked me to be his girlfriend, and I said ‘yes’,” Janice said, “and we’ve been together...