An Offline Romance

Today is my dad's birthday. He would've been 90 yrs. old! (Hey, he started out late in life....must've been waiting for just the right woman to come along!)

I'm a lot like my dad. Too much, probably. He was so easygoing that rarely did it ever seem that anything bothered him. Anyway, though, I thought today I would share my parents' little story of their romance, just because I think it's cute.

In the early '50's, my dad & grandfather were living together after my grandmother died, in Cleveland. I guess my dad used to travel a little. My mom was living in New Jersey with her parents, (since back then the girls usually didn't leave home until they were married) & she & her sisters used to travel. She was in her mid-30's, he was in his 40's. They met while vacationing, & hit it off so well, that they became "pen pals". Oh, they would meet each other occasionally; she would come to Ohio, or he would go to New Jersey, for the weekends. (And stay in motels.....get your minds out of the gutter!!) Other than that, they wrote letters to each other, basically every other day, or weekly, & somewhere along the line, fell in love & decided to get married. They had to delay the marriage a year, because her dad died in 1957 when they had planned on it, but they did marry in 1958. From what I saw, they were a perfect match, rarely argued, & lasted together until he died in 1980. I have both sets of letters....it's funny to see a side of your parents that you probably never even think about. ...pre-children!

Of course, had they had the internet back then, it probably wouldn't have taken so long! Pony Express you know...and actually writing by hand, buying the stamps, licking the envelopes, the WORK involved!! lol So, i think of it as a kind of online romance, but offline!