April 18th, 2020

Today is the wedding anniversary of my parents Serena Leveau and Joseph Robert Crocker. They married on this day in 1936 in Wheaton, Illinois, at the home of my mother’s half-sister Edna Lindstrom. They were both 27 years old. 

They were living in Chicago at the time they met. My father was going to the University of Chicago, working on his doctorate degree. My mother was working as a dietician for the Bell Telephone Company employee cafeterias; she had graduated from the University of Minnesota, and what had brought her to Chicago I do not know. 

My mother said they met at a party at a student’s apartment close to the University campus and were married three months later. I doubt they had friends in common for that party. His friend probably said, come on, let’s go to this party, you need a break. And her friend maybe said, hey, I know someone having a party, let’s go. 

And so they met and three months later they married.

They had four children, two sons and two daughters. 

And six grandchildren.

And ten great-grandchildren. 

Think of all the lives and all the histories and all the jumble of wonderful, sad, and amazing things that happened because of that meeting. 

Four.

Six.

Ten. 

It must have been a cold and perhaps snowy February night of that party. Perhaps my mother hesitated at the door of her apartment. Maybe put on her coat and then took it off again. And then slid her coat on one more time.

And she stepped out the door. 

Four.

Six.

Ten.