My guest today is Wisconsin author and a dear friend, Kara Lynn Russell. (Her latest book is above.) She decided to share her mom’s “surprising and quite shocking” (GRIN) love story. Here’s Kara:

“My Mother and the Sailor

“Shortly after I graduated from college I moved back home with my parents for a time. When I began a long distance romance, of course my parents worried about me traveling by myself to and from my sweetheart’s home. By that time in my life, my mother had assumed the role of best friend and chief adviser. So she shared with me the details of her own wild love affair.

It began in 1961 when she had left the family farm behind her and fled to the big city of Milwaukee to live the crazy, carefree life of a stenographer. There she shared an apartment with two friends, Patti and Judy.

Once, Judy got into a fight with her fiancé (an air force man) and to spite him, arranged a date with a navy man who had leave from the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. The only problem was the man needed a date for his friend. Judy volunteered Mom to be his date and she reluctantly agreed. She was sweet on someone else at the time, you see.

But then, my mother and the sailor hit it off. In fact they became quite an item and were soon dating seriously. The sailor took the train to Milwaukee on weekends to see my mother. During the week he worked on completing his training in electronics. It was a bad shock for Mom when, after three months his training was complete and he left without even saying good-bye.

Approximately two months later the sailor called my mother and asked her to marry him. Mom agreed and they began to plan the wedding. But true love never runs smoothly and this was the case when the political climate of the time made it impossible for the sailor to get enough leave for the wedding and honeymoon.

So now what? Should they call the wedding off? Should my Mom sit at home and wait endlessly for the sailor to come home from the sea? The Sailor didn’t think so.

This was his idea: She should give up her job and apartment in Milwaukee, get on a dirty, smelly bus and ride –alone- all the way out to New Jersey, where his mother, who she had never seen before, would meet her. My mom would live with his mom until she found a job and a place of her own. As soon as he got a couple days leave they would get married.

What a crazy idea! What kind of woman would agree to that! My mother would, of course. I’m certain that my grandparents were less than thrilled about the idea of their only daughter heading off alone to a strange city to marry a man they had never met.

The story has a happy ending though. The sailor and Mom did indeed get married. After a few years he left the navy and later bought my grandparents’ farm. The sailor became the farmer and enjoyed (still enjoys!) many years of marriage with my mother. By now you know, of course, that this man is my father.

And in turn, my father and mother worried when I started driving from Wisconsin to Illinois to spend time with my sweetheart. But that story had a happy ending, too as we have now been happily married for seventeen years. That’s two happy endings in one story! And, with God’s blessings, we shall all continue to live happily ever after.”

I’m so happy, Kara, that your parents remembered how powerful love can be and didn’t forget their own daring love story!

For more about Kara’s books, drop by http://karalynnrussell.googlepages.com/home