Barbara 1957 - 1967 - I met Barbara in 1958 when I got a date with the sister of a girl I knew in high school. This girl asked if she could bring along a friend, Barbara, and I said sure. I didn't date the sister any more and started dating Barbara whenever I was in town. We dated for several month but it was long distance as I was working Clyde, Ohio at the time.
Barbara was a high school home economics teacher. She came from Grand Rapids where her dad was a vice president in Trane. We married about a year after we met and she moved to Clyde, Ohio, with me and got a job teaching school in a near by town. A short time later I was transferred to Columbus but due to her teaching contract, she stayed at Clyde while I went to Columbus on weekdays and lived in an apartment. This lasted for about six months until Barbara's school was out for summer vacation.
After we were in Columbus, where she got a job teaching. She started back to school at Ohio State University to earn her PhD which she did. As she was financially well off we purchased a home in Upper Arlington and lived there several years.
She was offered a position at Ohio State University after she got her PhD. She taught in Graduate School as well as in experimental school where they taught elementary age kids with new techniques. She later got involved with another professor there so I divorced her! 10 years of marriage down the tubes but was the best for me.
Mary Ann was living with her parents, who were Italian, and a very close knit family. She had never lived on her own and being married to me and living away from her parents was something totally new to her. We were blessed with a son, Christopher Mark, about a year after we married. Mary Ann and I lived in an apartment for one winter and then purchased a nice two story home just north of Upper Arlington, about a 15 minute drive from Columbia.
After Chris arrived Mary Ann want to get a ranch and proceeded to find one for sale about 3 blocks away. I really didn't want a ranch but she persisted and I eventually gave in an bought the ranch. I did, however, really enjoy the ranch so it turned out to be a good move.
Mary Ann tried to keep close to her parents and was not to happy when they moved to Florida. Not sure why they move but they were only there for a year or so before they moved back to Columbus and found a small condo about five blocks away from us. Her parents were very nice, simple people who worked hard and saved their money. Her dad was a fireman and her mother was a housewife. I enjoy knowing them both.
Mary Ann tried to get me to buy a twin-single with her parents not far from where we lived. It was a small twin, barely over 1100 square feet on each side as I recall. Our ranch was about 1700 square feet. I said no and thought that was the end of it. It wasn't. Sometime later her parents moved from their condo near us to the southwest part of Columbus to a twin-single. It had no garage for either side and was on a busy street to boot. She want us to move there with her parents. The side we would have had two bedrooms, a bath, a living room dining area, a kitchen, and a large basement. Smaller, much smaller than our ranch.
Again I said no but one day I came home from work and found she had moved in with her parents and taken Chris with her. At this time she was not working. As things turned out, she would not come back and I would not go there so we divorced. Sad day in my life as I lost my son, Chris.
She eventually move to Florida with her parents, guess she could not stand to be away from them, and got a job to support herself. I only saw Chris for a few weeks each year. When Chris was about 12 years old and I was married to Jeanne, Mary Ann called to see if I wanted Chris to live with us. This was a difficult decision as Jeanne and I had a pretty good life going. But, after much talk we decided we should take him.
It was good thing we took Chris as he was grossly over weight, about 130 pounds at 12 years old and normal height. It took a few months of dieting to get him back down to a normal weight. I guess we were too tough on Chris as he decided to move back with his mom when he was about 16. Chris learn to fend for himself as his mother could not help him with college funds and I couldn't either. He got loans, grants, etc. and got through college, got married, got a job, got two sons, went back to college for a Master Degree and now has a fine family, a nice house, several nice cars, a dog, and a great job with Accenture in Tallahassee, Florida.
You can read how we met at the other page but I can relate a bit here. Jeanne had a Christian Date Club in Columbus which she ran out of her home. She charged $15 to join (I think) and for this you were suppose to get introductions to three people each month for three months. About six month after Mary Ann and I divorced I signed up with her club.
When I got my first list of names and phone number the last name was Jeanne and a phone number. At this time I didn't know she was the club but I suspected it due to the handwriting. I contacted two of the ladies on the list and had coffee dates with them but just didn't want to continue seeing them. But Jeanne - she was different and I knew we were right for each other. I did, however, make a major gaff on the first coffee date, which was at a local hotel bar, by saying that "I have never dated a grandmother before." She had her other son, wife, and baby girl living with her at the time. She just about refused to go out again because of this but relented and did. Thank goodness!!
Jeanne is/was a very strong woman and self-reliant in just about everything. She had to be as she raised three children, two boys and a girl, by herself while holding down a secretary job at the Ohio Department of Transportation in Columbus. She was very careful with her money and worked hard to save enough to buy a twin-single in Bexley, just to the east of the Columbus city limits. Actually, Columbus is made up of several small town on its border.
Jeanne even save enough money to buy a campground site to the south of Columbus in the Hocking Hills and found a used camping trailer to put there for vacations and weekends. She and her kids used it quite a bit. In fact, her oldest boy, Larry, stayed there while he was attending Ohio University studying electrical engineering.
Jeanne and I like to do the same things, walk, ski, golf, hike, travel, etc., you name it and we have probably done it together. Well, almost everything as I don't like cruise ship, never have, never will. And I really don't like to gamble where as Jeanne enjoys the slots and she wins! Me? I lose it all so we come out even.
Mary Ann 1968 - 1978 - Mary Ann was a Executive Secretary for a Columbia Gas executive in the Service Corporation. I worked in the Research Department. We met though our jobs and were married about a year after my divorce from Barbara.
Jeanne 1979 - 2007 - Jeanne passed away February 7, 2007. Almost everything I can say about Jeanne has been said in another part of this scrapbook, Jeanne. I don't know what more I can add here about our life together since 1979. Things have been like any normal marriage, up and down, thick and thin. But we worked out our differences and stuck by each other for almost 30 years, until she passed away due to cancer on February 8, 2007.
