Our 60^th Wedding Anniversary

Today, June 13, 2019, Mary Jane and I celebrate 60 years of marriage. Wow!! Where did the years go? Did all those events that seem to have happened only yesterday really happen that long ago? To get to 60, you must start at 0; that is, you must start at the beginning. So exactly how did it all begin, anyway? As I recall, it began something like this.

For the first 15 years of my life, I lived in Weissport, PA, a small town of about 600 people situated along the eastern bank of the Lehigh River in eastern Pennsylvania about 80 miles north of Philadelphia. On the western side of the river was the Borough of Lehighton, population about 6600 and the largest town in Carbon County. The town was situated on the edge of the then-thriving anthracite coal mining region of eastern PA. The Lehigh Valley Railroad ran along the western bank of the river and was one of the main routes between New York City and Buffalo, NY. (That means that I lived ’on the other side of the tracks’ from Lehighton!!) The railroad was the major employer in the area, having a major repair and maintenance facility in Lehighton.

At that time, our educational system was set up so that those of us living in Weissport went through elementary school (grades 1 thru 8) in Weissport and then transferred to Lehighton High School for grades 9 through 12. Since Weissport was such a small town, many of us would participate in sports and cultural activities in Lehighton that were available there. For me, I played in the Lehighton Boys Band from about 12 years of age and in the Little League Baseball program that had been organized in Lehighton.

As a result of my participation in Lehighton-based activities, I got to know many of the guys my age who lived in Lehighton, so that when it was time for me to move on to ninth grade at LHS, I already knew most of the guys in my ninth grade class.

Mary Jane, by contrast, lived in Lehighton all her life and not only went through elementary school in the Lehighton school system, but also started ninth grade at LHS the same year as I did. And having been in elementary school in Lehighton, she knew many of the same guys I did when we started ninth grade, and they knew her. One of those guys was a good buddy of mine from the Boys Band, Ernie Wert.

Both Mary Jane and I were active in extracurricular activities in high school. She sang in the Mixed Chorus, the Girls Choir, the Girls Trio, and she was a cheerleader. I, too, was in the Mixed Chorus as well as the Boys Glee Club, Boys Quartet, and I was on the basketball and baseball teams. So, it was not long after starting ninth grade at LHS that I began to notice this cute girl I just happened to see all the time at school activities. One day I happened to mention to my friend Ernie that Mary Jane Stimmel had caught my eye. Ernie’s response was immediate and direct. "Forget her! ", he said. "She hates guys! "

Bethany Evangelical Congregational Church
Where We Got Married

Although we were both in the same ninth grade class, we were in different class sections so that we never had any course classes together even though we were both taking the same college prep program of study. So, I had to find some way of getting to know this girl. After several invitations for a date during our sophomore year, MJ finally agreed to go to a movie with me, so the ice was finally broken. We dated from that point on through our remaining high school days and we graduated in the same graduating class in June of 1953.

As I recall, it was during the summer after high school graduation that I first brought up the subject of marriage. I said something like, "I love you. I want to marry you." We both understood that marriage before completing college was not to be a serious consideration. Mary Jane planned to start her work toward a degree in physical education at East Stroudsburg State Teachers College (now East Stroudsburg University) in East Stroudsburg, PA, about 30 miles east of Lehighton, and I had been accepted at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA, about 30 miles south of Lehighton, to start my studies toward a degree in chemical engineering. For the next four years, our courtship was limited to regular mail correspondence and seeing each other when we went home to Lehighton on weekends, holidays, and other special occasions.

After graduating from Lehigh in 1957, I took a job with a petroleum refining company in Texas City, TX for the summer. During that summer, I made a trip back to PA for a friend’s wedding. It was on that trip that I gave MJ a diamond engagement ring and we officially announced our engagement to be married. I then went off to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor to start work for my masters degree and MJ took a job teaching girls phys ed at Fountain Hill High School in PA. So once again, we didn’t see much of each other until Christmas of 1957.

I only stayed in Michigan for one semester and then took a job with a chemical company as a plant technical service engineer in Springfield, MA in February 1958 while MJ continued with her job in Fountain Hill. About a year later, the company transferred me to their plant in Cincinnati, OH. On my way from Springfield to Cincinnati, I made a route through PA and we did see each other for a short visit. It was at that time that MJ finally said, in effect, that this long-distance relationship was not working very well, and she thought it was time for us to tie the knot. So, she set a date for our wedding in June 1959.

While I was still in Cincinnati, I had decided that I wanted to teach at the college level and realized that to do so I would need to have my doctoral degree. I had contacted several colleges with chemical engineering programs and was offered an instructorship at Penn State where I would be a full-time member of the chemical engineering faculty while I completed work for my masters and doctoral degrees. I received the offer from Penn State just a day or two before I left Cincinnati for our wedding, so when I got back to PA for the wedding, almost the first thing I said to MJ was, "How would you like to live in State College at Penn State"? She thought that would be great, so we made plans to resign our current positions and move to Penn State.

After our wedding, we made a honeymoon trip to Lake George, NY, then headed to Cincinnati where we rented a furnished one-bedroom apartment for $90 a month until mid-August when we moved to State College. We rented an apartment in State College for about four months, then bought a three-bedroom house in a local development for $14,500 with only $750 down and monthly payments of $105. Have times changed or have they changed?

And that’s how it all started. . .the prologue, if you will, to our 60 years of marriage.

It has been said that a beautiful life is never perfect. Whether or not our life together could be called ’beautiful’ is not for us to say. We do know that it has not been ’perfect’ (whatever that means). But we also know that we have been immensely blessed. We have a family that we are proud of, faithful and supportive friends too numerous to number, countless happy memories, and many years of above-average good health together with life-long opportunities for ministry. There is no doubt in our minds that God has been good to us, and for that we are truly grateful.

Thank you, Lord!!

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