Below, you'll find the story of how she and her husband of 55 years met while they were in high school. It's quite entertaining. I think Sue's self-assured-ness really shines through this story. And that's why we all love her. : )
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Claire
My friends and I were called The Filthy Five, which I hated. It was me, Deanne, Jan, Norma and Elizabeth. We had been friends since the seventh grade and they decided we needed a name. They kept trying to think of something, like The Flirty Five. I said "Oh no! The guys will think we're crazy." I was always a little more mature than the rest of them. My friends finally kept pushing to be called The Filthy Five. My mother hated it.
Larry lived up the street from my friend Deanne, who was one of The Filthy Five. Deanne saw Larry come by on his Harley a couple of times. She made herself available to meet him. They started talking a lot and dating. She could get boys really quick. She wanted the rest of us to meet him, about two weeks before school started.
I didn't live that far from them; we walked everywhere. We did walk a mile one way to school, but it wasn't all uphill. Some of it was downhill. It was usually not in the snow. It was a couple of times, but it was usually in the ice and the wind and the rain.
So, Deanne called me up and one of our other girlfriends that lived pretty close. She said, "I want you to meet Larry. Come over here on Saturday and I'll find some reason to get him over here so you can meet him."
So, we came over at the time that she told us. She told us to go into the house. She called Larry and asked him to come over on his motorcycle. He came over and she told us to stay in the house.
We asked, "I thought you wanted us to meet him?"
She said, "No! I want you to stay in the house and look at him through the glass."
When we asked why, she said that she was afraid that we might take him away from her. But we told her that we were going to meet him in a few weeks when school started anyway. She insisted that we stay inside, so we did.
Two weeks later, when school started, I met Larry. Deanne was crazy about Larry. I thought, "Oh, brother!" I mean, he was cute. He had beautiful, curly, wavy hair. It was really soft, dark brown. He had beautiful, long eyelashes and blue eyes. But I was going with a college guy at the time who was a family friend and had a car. We would go places. He was a little too highbrow for me, though, he was into classical music and I thought it was boring. I went with him for about seven months.
So, Deanne and Larry were madly in love. Deanne, Norma and Jan decided that none of us should ever date anyone that one of the rest of us had dated.
I said, "What?! That's dumb. Once you've broken up with somebody, what would it matter?"
Well, they just didn't think that we should. They said, "Sue! You never go along with our plans!"
I thought it was dumb. Well, who do you think broke it?
One day, in the lunchroom, all of us girls were sitting together and Deanne was saying that she was getting tired of Larry. She said she wanted to figure out a way to break up with him. Then Norma piped up and said that she would like to date him. Deanne said that she would like to date Buddy, who Norma was dating.
She said, "You would?! Let's swap boyfriends!"
So they plotted that at the teen dance, that was the next weekend, they were going to swap boyfriends. I was sitting there thinking that they were crazy and it was never going to happen. Boy, was I wrong! I didn't go to the teen dance because I had something going on that weekend. I just figured the swap was never going to happen.
But on Monday, here was Deanne and Buddy, and Norma and Larry.
I thought, "These guys are dumb!"
Norma and Larry had only been going together for a little over two weeks, but she was making all these plans with him.
One Sunday, one of my friends came by and picked me up to go to church, and Larry was with him. They had a teen thing on Sunday evenings after church. We went to the church and sat outside because we were a little early. Norma and Deanne sang in the choir. We were waiting until their practice was over and we were sitting out there talking to each other. Larry asked me if I wanted to go to a skating party that the seniors were having. He was a senior at the time, and I was a junior.
I said, "No thank you."
He asked me why not.
And I asked, "Well, how much are the tickets?"
He said, "No, I'm not trying to sell you a ticket. I want to know if you want to go to the skating party with me."
I said, "Oh no, no, no! Norma is madly in love with you. No."
He said he really didn't want to go with her anymore. I just kept saying no, but my friend told me that Larry and Norma weren't going to be dating anymore. He said Larry wasn't asking for anything except a date, so why didn't I just go with him? He thought it would be fun.
I got to thinking about it and thought, "Okay, well…"
When the news got out, Norma hated me and her mother hated me. Norma told Deanne later on, that she was going to name her first baby Larry. Her mother would not speak to me and said all kinds of ugly things about Larry. He would give a girl the line; Larry had already told Norma that he loved her.
I dated him for a couple of weeks and he started telling me that he loved me. I said, "No, you don't. Besides that, when I told you that I go out with you, didn't I say that we were going to be just friends. Just friends. Okay? Just friends."
He said, "But I love you. Don't you love me?"
I said, "No. I like you. We're just friends."
We played this game for a long, long time.
I finally did fall in love with him, and I told him.
But I said we were too young to get married.
