TBT - Pops & Grammy's Story

This is my very concise summary of Mom's rendition of The Story from an interview I conducted with her in 2001.

Mom and Dad met in high school.  Dad moved to Mom’s neighborhood and lived just around the corner from her family.  He started attending Mom’s high school when he was a Sophomore and she was a Freshman.  They quickly became good friends and saw each other through crushes and relationships with other people for a few years.  Even when they were both dating other people, they’d wait until their dates were over and meet up afterwards and talk about their dates.

Dad first tried to date Mom at Christmas time of his Senior year but Mom was seriously dating someone else, so she turned him down.  He told her he’d wait.  When Mom’s older boyfriend broke up with her soon after he started college, she started dating Dad within a few weeks.

Dad's college graduation.

Mom and Dad dated all through college.  When Mom was finishing high school and Dad was going to college at William & Mary, he would come home on the weekends so they could date.  The next year, Mom went to college at Longwood and would visit Dad at W&M on the weekends.  They had fun dating at W&M but also spent time studying on the weekends.

One time Dad borrowed a friend’s motorcycle so he could ride 4 hours to Longwood, surprising Mom during the week.  All of Mom’s friends met him for the first time and it was like a movie star had arrived in the dorm because they were all so excited to see him after hearing so much about him.

Mom, Dad, and Grandma at Dad's commissioning.

Dad first asked Mom to marry him his Sophomore year but she said no, she wanted to finish college first.  He asked again the next year with the same answer and he told her he would only ask one more time.  But Mom was pinned and they were committed to each other, expecting to get married eventually.

Beautiful Bride.

Mom attended Dad’s graduation from college and his commissioning, then Dad headed to Ft. Benning to begin his Army career while Mom finished up her degree at the University of Virginia.  Then one weekend while Mom was in her Senior year, Dad was home on leave so they could attend the wedding of one of Dad’s fraternity brothers.  He wanted to be engaged at the wedding, so on the way he asked Mom if she wanted to get married and she said yes so he handed her the ring in the car.

Mom & Dad's wedding in Ft. Benning.
Uncle Reed did a reading, Uncle Jerry performed the wedding,
and Grandpa was Dad's best man.

They planned to get married at the end of the summer because of Dad’s Army schedule, then the field exercises they were doing were rescheduled for a later time so Dad ended up having to be air lifted out of the exercise and barely made it to the wedding on time.

Opa, Oma, Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa

Mom and Dad supported each other through advanced degrees, difficult Army assignments, moves in several locations on two continents, and four practically perfect children (wink, wink).  We had a great family life during my formative years - we enjoyed being together and we laughed a lot.  I love my parents and am grateful to still have both of them in my life.