One of the best ways to ensure your families' stories live on is to tell the story of how your family started.  When you meet your partner, unbeknownst to you, you start a new legacy to pass on.  And most of these meetings are chance, and due to that chance meeting, you start an entire new line of DNA transmission and personality formation.  Even if you don't have children, meeting that partner creates a new world around you.

So if you'll indulge me what I know to be true.....

I met my future husband when I was working in the Mens Furnishings Department of a department store.  Had it not been for Al's need for ties and boxers, I'd never have met him.  And even then, it took him about 6months to ask me out.  But one date and I knew...well maybe it was the 2nd date (b/c his parting comment on the 1st date sent my Kraut hardhead into a spin). 

My mother and dad met at a small college in Loretto, PA.  He was from Altoona, she from Washington, DC.  They might as well have been from different planets.  She was a year behind him in his religion class, and on crutches sitting between dad and his best buddy alphabetically, so if they'd had different surnames I might not be the blip on the radar typing away right now.  Their first date my dad refers to as the "Enchantment Under the Sea" Dance (ala the "Back to the Future" movies)  Slickster that he was, he asked her to walk out to see his new paint job on his car, and kissed her.  They are still together today, through thick and thin.  Must have been one heckuva paint job.

Al's parents went to high school together, but did not date until they switched dates at their Senior Prom.  He went off to the MArine Corps, and he tells it that when he returned from Gitmo, Cuba, a wedding had been planned by my mother in law and her mother.  They had 3 children in 3 years, spent years struggling through parenthood, finances, and illness.  He cared for her for 16 years as she battled scleroderma, succumbing in 1999.  I thank my lucky stars their original prom dates were a bust!

My paternal grandparents actually went to elementary school together.  (In fact, their parents' families lived only miles apart from one another in Bavaria, and I visited both farms.)  He being the 2nd oldest of 12, left home at 16 to serve in the service abroad and work in NYC.  And she being the oldest girl in a family of 8, quit school after 8th grade to keep house, work and help raise the family (side note, her youngest sister is Cory's grandmother). He returned to Altoona after WWII, and they were reintroduced.  I think he had to really convince her to marry him....he was dashing and a party guy, she was a homebody.  But they did marry and had their ups and downs as well, until his accidental death in 1970.  He, the party guy, missed all 3 of his children's weddings, all 12 grandchildren, and 4 great grandchildren.  She saw 2 of her great grandchildren be born, and witnessed 89 years of the world's greatest transitional times go by.

My maternal grandparents met in Washington DC in the early 30s.  My grandmother had moved there in the late 20s from deep in Alabama, relegated there by her father since she was still unmarried at the ripe old age of 27.  She was working and having a fabulous time, and at least 2 fiances prior to my grandfather.  He was from Memphis, studied law at Georgetown, top of his class, and worked in the Attorney General's Office for most of his career.  They met and married in a rectory, with a few friends in attendance, as neither family was enthused with the match, he being CAtholic and she raised a strict Southern Baptist.  Their marriage only lasted 42 years and had 4 children, 13 grandchildren, and now 8 great grandchildren.

This should keep the stories of Jack & Cassie (Wilder) Adler, Joe & Anne (West) Antesberger, Dave & Judy (Shamas) Hogan, Joe & Trish (Adler) Antesberger and Al and Jessica (Antesberger) Hogan going in the kids minds.  In fact, I'll be adding this to their baby books. 

Thanks for reading, and I'd love to read your stories of meeting the significant people in your lives.