Below is my Dad's Story. I'm so grateful that he wrote it down!

My Marriage to Pat

Pat and I were married November 27, 1954. Up until we were married we were like brother and sister. If I had nothing to do I would call her and ask if she wanted to do something, and sometimes she had nothing to do as well, so we did something. It wasn’t really a date, it was more of an outing. We actually loved each other at that time but we didn’t think of it as anything except close friends. We could fool each other but we couldn’t fool her boyfriend or my girlfriend and they were both insanely jealous of our relationship. Finally, I woke up to the fact that I didn’t want to live without her and I proposed by saying, “Let’s go to Iowa and get married.” This was while we were walking across Selby Avenue in the St. Paul slush. She must have had similar feelings because she thought that it was a good idea. We picked up Diane and Jiggs Peltier, who had been married about 2 weeks, as witnesses and away to Charles City Iowa we went.

Pat was the perfect wife for me from the day we were married until, “death do us part.” You can’t get a marriage any better than the one that we had and we both knew it.  Neither one of us was the classic spouse but love made us a harmonious pair.

Our early marriage was very trying primarily because we had no money. I worked for K&N Machine Works making $60 per week. Pat was living in a tiny second story apartment that belonged to the Blomquist Real Estate Company. When our friends Fran and John offered us a free tiny house on their property we took it for 2 reasons, 1.) We had no money and 2.) We wanted to get away from the people who didn’t think well of our marriage. The house was unbelievably bad. The toilet was next door (150 feet away) and the heat would quit on the coldest nights. Remember, this was Minnesota during the winter. Pat was working for a small real estate company downtown and I became a salesman for them. The income was sporadic at best but we were getting by. As soon as we had enough money to pay rent we moved to a White Bear motel and then  found an apartment in the basement of the Cozy Cove Motel, near Lake Elmo. We were eating well, warm, and had a bathroom down the hall. The motel manager and his wife loved to play nickel dime poker and they were such bad players we could afford to play often. In fact poker winnings helped with the rent. Ted was born that fall so we had 3 children and our apartment consisted of 3 motel rooms on a hallway. We decided to find a more private abode but money was still an issue. I found a job running a punch press on the midnight shift at Seeger’s, a St Paul refrigerator factory, with steady income at $98 a week. We moved to 707 Lawson, a second floor duplex several houses from Payne Avenue. About that same time the Superintendent of Schools from Stillwater called and said that he needed an industrial arts teacher for several months while his regular teacher recovered from back surgery. I had been recommended by my department at the University of Minnesota. This was a dream come true, teaching school with good pay with no certificate. Several months turned into six months. Two full time jobs were hard on me but it sure helped the money issues.

I don’t remember exactly when, but I went back to school so I could get a teaching certificate. I had my teaching experience in Stillwater and a marvelous recommendation from the superintendent and requested that I be given credit for the practice teaching requirement. They said that my experience could not be recognized because I had been paid for it. So I started practice teaching at Cleveland Junior High school. It was a sick school in a sick system and after completing the requirement I decided not to become a teacher.

Our house on LaBore Road came up for sale and we wanted it. We had some of the down payment but needed a second mortgage. My parents came up with the money for the second and we bought it. I was still working the midnight shift at Seeger's and one morning I was restless so I sat down at the kitchen table to read the paper. UNIVAC had an ad for just about any type of technical help. So I drove out to UNIVAC and they hired me as a mechanical technician. I spent most of my time working in a model shop building analog computers and parts and pieces for other experimental items. I loved the job but I needed more money. After about 2 years I applied for a job in Field Service. My first assignment was in Norfolk VA installing a vacuum tube type of computer. My job was assembling the cooling plenum and grouting the base with concrete. I guess that I was paying my dues. After 3 weeks I was called back to St. Paul to go to NTDS Computer School. I was 2 weeks late for the school and completely snowed so I went to the St Paul Library every night to study. It didn’t take long to catch up to my class mates and pass them. After 6 weeks of a 13 week school my boss Tom Robinson called me to his office to ask me to go to San Diego.

Pat wanted to go to San Diego so bad she had been packing for months. Half of our belongings were in boxes on the front porch ready for shipping. I had joined Field Service in hopes of getting transferred to San Diego and now it was happening. All of you have heard this story many times but I have to tell it. Tom Robinson said that they needed someone in San Diego and what would I think of a West Coast Assignment. I said that it would be fine. He further explained that he wanted me to leave tomorrow. I said that would be fine. He said that my family could follow me out there in about a month. I said that would be fine. He then sent me out to Mary Jane, his department secretary, to cut the paperwork. Mary Jane said that she had heard me in there and wasn’t doing anything until I called my wife. I called Pat and explained things in a very mater of fact tone but didn’t tell Mary Jane that Pat was so happy she was crying. That move was the start of a fantastic career.

 After we moved to San Diego in 1959 we learned that we both needed personal space. I was working 80 or 90 hours a week and loving every minute of my new found computer career and after I suggested that she get a life. She immediately started her education that she had missed. I had my life and she had hers. We met at the family and worked together to build as good a life as we could for all of us.

Pat and I were opposites in many ways. In a few words she was artistic and I was mechanical. She tended to be serious about every thing except money and I was relaxed about most things except money. I was a morning person and she didn’t get going until late morning. She was a great student and I wasn’t. When she started her education and showed her tremendous intellectual ability, my thought was that the wrong one of us had been going to school. Our abilities and interests were so different from one another we didn’t compete, except when playing pinochle. We shared a family and a home and built on one another’s strengths and ignored one another’s differences. I guess that’s a part of a strong loving relationship.

George and Honey moved to San Diego from Minnesota and moved in with us. Pat was pregnant with Gail and as usual Honey was a god send on managing the family and the house. Our lease was about up and we bought the house on Cardinal Drive. George and Honey rented a house in North Park and were on their own. We had moved June 1, 1960 and Gail was born July 14. To say the least we were busy people and I was still working long hours. Fortunately, we could afford a house keeper to help Pat keep up and that fall Pat became a more or less full time student at San Diego State. Bird Land as we called it was a wonderful neighborhood for kids to grow up. It was fairly isolated and safe, had a good neighborhood school, and people interested in their community. We all grew and prospered enjoying the “60s” as time flew by.

Even in those days Pat loved to plant things and always did things correctly in good soil. When we started working on the back yard there was no way anything would grow in the soil that was there so Pat asked me to go get as many bales of peat moss as I could get in the car. The garden store was next door to a swimming pool contractor so I thought I would look at a few designs. I knew that the family would love to have a pool so I bought a pool instead of the peat moss. I hated the pool maintenance but it provided many hours of fun for our family and our friends. We all loved it!

In 1966 I was still working for UNIVAC, or whatever they were calling it (many name changes), and loved my work as a Systems Engineer. However, we were working Navy contracts with the contract winner being the one with the lowest price. That meant the glory days of big salary raises were gone so I started to look for a new job. I went to work for Control Data, La Jolla Division which designed and built industrial process control systems.

He only got to 1966, but these were the early years before most of us remember the events. From here, the family moved to Palos Verdes, and then Mississippi, Northern VA and MD, and then back to MS! They were married for 58 years before my mom passed away in 2012.