Happy Anniversary!

If they were still alive, today would have been my mother Mary and father Nelson's 75th wedding anniversary. They got married on a farm west of Geneva, Illinois - owned by my father's Uncle John - on July 27th, 1940 (see photograph above).  Two years later my sister Susan came along, and eleven years later, me.  The evening before I was born, my mother and father and sister celebrated my sister's 11th birthday at the Rosewood Inn, a restaurant owned by my father's friend Art Houle.  They had dinner, and then drove to St. Bernard's Hospital at 63rd and State Street on Chicago's South Side, where I was born a short time later.  According to my sister, that was the end of her happy, carefree life.  However, she did forgive me for being born when I turned 50 years, so at last all is well.  And yes - this is the EXACT same photograph I used last year. Tough!  In any case, Happy Anniversary Mother and Dad, if your spirits are out there somewhere.