When Rich Met Peggy
THE SUMMER OF 1964
In retrospect, this is really a mystical meeting of soul mates in the first place! Why Milford, Iowa? Why is Peggy staying at Rich’s best friend’s sister’s place anyway? Peggy has gotten a job this summer at Okobojian Girl.
We are both out of college for the summer and working in Milford. Rich has worked summer months in carpentry and lawn service jobs. His high school friend, George, is a carpenter.
Peggy has found summer residence at George’s sister’s home.
Well, as it turns out Rich is tooling around Milford one noon hour in George’s pickup. Peggy is apparently walking back to work from noon hour and we spy her on the sidewalk just west of Main Street. Peggy is well dressed and has a beautiful gait. She is petite, has long hair and glasses and looks just very intelligent, among other things.
Gloria started telling Peggy about this great guy they want her to meet practically from the first moment she walked in the door. Peggy thinks Gloria and George were plotting for quite awhile before the MEETING took place. Rich is very good looking with dark hair and glasses.
Both of us believe that Rich goes to their friends' place one night and therefore meets Peggy. We go on a double date with our friends to Arnolds Park and to a drive-in food place.
This is back in the day when Catholics were still prohibited from eating meat on Friday but both of us had a hamburger that Friday night. Were we too gaga to realize what day of the week it was?
Several days later Rich and Peggy go on a date and drive to Arnold's Park and are just driving around when Rich’s car accidentally throws rock into a police car directly behind us. Well, we turn the car off and address the officer. After that, the car will not start and so Peggy and Rich walk back to Milford on a clear moon-shining starry summer night. A time to remember for sure.
We won’t talk about the time that Peggy was covering for the newspaper the appearance of the Everly Brothers at the Roof Garden and Rich stood her up! He was supposed to meet Peggy there and never showed up. Neither one of us can remember what happened or what his excuse was but Peggy can remember being really angry! She obviously got over it.
Time goes fast and we find ourselves going back to college-Peggy in Sioux City and Rich in Mankato. We begin to write to each other.
We wrote to each other everyday. You can really get to know someone through daily letters. Much more so than phone calls or emails.
We are not sure of the timeline, however Rich drove to Sioux City with his college friend’s '46 Chevy one cold wintry night. It is there Rich understands what he is getting into and gets that feeling that he cannot live without Peggy! As if Rich did not know that he was in love with this girl by this time, something also happened to him at a gift store during that visit that clinched that feeling that is too mystical to explain!!
We become engaged in December of '64 in the car going to a movie!!
The next thing we know we were at the church in front of Father Borman and with many family and friends.
For a 10:30 a.m. wedding! Lunch at noon and we were off to our small apartment in Sioux Falls. This was a beautiful hot, windy summer day in northwest Iowa. We stopped on the way for dinner. We loved our small apartment and our time in Sioux Falls. Especially since Peggy worked at Fantles Department Store and Rich sat around and did nothing. After several months we were off to Spencer, Iowa where Rich had landed an auditor position with the State Auditor of Iowa!
And 4 children, 4 grandchildren, 5 houses, a number of Ford cars later...
Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad. I love you!
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