I met Larry Budge ’61 the summer of 1968. I had just moved to Cornwall, NY as a Vietnam widow with an 18-month-old son. For some unknown reason I was invited to West Point for the Thayer Award Dinner and was seated next to Bill (’61) and Louisa Heiberg. Larry was supposed to be in attendance since it was honoring General William Westmoreland (Larry had served as his aide in Viet Nam.) But instead, Larry chose to have a date in NYC.

Louisa and I immediately became friends and she decided Larry and I should meet. The date was set for a restaurant but changed to the Heiberg’s home (due to their son Will’s ear infection), so Larry drove over the mountain to pick me up. I had a friend visiting and she was watching my son for the evening.

For our lovely introduction--Larry arrives at my house---my out-of-control basset hound, Demetrius, jumps on him, covering his lovely grey trousers with white dog hair (which Larry tries to brush off all evening). We get in his car and as we back away—the dog is barking and my son Chip is screaming and pounding on the storm door—“Mommy, mommy, mommy.” My friend is telling me to just GO!

The twenty-minute drive over Bear Mountain to Louisa and Bill’s was nearly in total silence! When we arrive their St Bernard, Gracie proceeds to get even more dog hair on Larry. We do have a wonderful dinner and get to know each other a little. The ride back over the mountain involved more conversation but I thought I’d never see him again.

Fast forward two a half year of dating---and never mentioning marriage. November 1, 1970---he came to my house for dinner---and asked if I’d like to go skiing in Switzerland over West Point Christmas break. (He was teaching in the Social Science Department.) Although I’d been a flight attendant in the mid-sixties, I’d never been to Europe, so I immediately said, “that sounds wonderful”. He said ‘State Department’ friends, the Francises, Al and Mary, would go with us. (Al was serving at West Point at the time and we skied together regularly).

That all sounded so wonderful BUT—I said, “my parents would never understand taking care of my almost 3-year-old while I go skiing in Switzerland over Christmas”. He said, ‘What if we were married’—I said, ‘Is that a proposal?’---He said ‘I guess it is. I said ‘OK’---what shall our wedding date be?

We spoke with Chaplain Ford a couple days later and I had 5 weeks to plan a wedding.

It snowed so hard during the night before December 12, 1970---for the twelve-noon wedding---we had to allow several hours to get over the mountain to the Cadet Chapel. It was a beautiful snowy day at West Point.

Our honeymoon in Switzerland was wonderful. Although being a stewardess, I wasn’t fond of flying coach on a charter flight, riding several trains to get to Davos was exciting with very quick train changes, pushing skis thru train windows and the guys running to catch the train, The Post Hotel was lovely, and I tried not to spend too much time worrying that it would burn down with the beautiful 20+ foot live tree with real lighted candles!

So many, many more adventures later and here we are married almost 51 years (we celebrated our 50th with our family during the Pandemic).