Grammy and Pop Pop have touched so many lives with their love since 1962. None of us would be here and we wouldn’t be who we are without them - and their decision to runaway to Florida all those years ago. Not to mention the many friends that they have mentored, supported, and encouraged along the way.
Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?
It starts with some hitchhiking and a choir class. Pop, in his typical adventurous and tenacious fashion, ran away from military school and hitchhiked to Texas. After (quickly) running out of money, his parents sent him a one-way ticket back to his hometown in Beach Haven, NJ with the promise that he would finish out his senior year at Southern Regional High School in Manahawkin, NJ. That’s where he spotted Grammy in choir class for the first time. She was 15 and he was 17.
They had been dating for about a year when Pop graduated and went to Navy boot camp to be a diver. He was honorably discharged soon after finding that he didn’t physically qualify. He then ventured down to Boynton Beach, FL to work as a mate on the head boat “Two Georges” for a man named George Culver. All the while, Grammy and Pop Pop stayed in touch writing letters back and forth and growing their love from a distance.
Pop’s parents (my great grandparents) were a very prominent and well-known family in Long Beach Island, NJ. Pop’s father was the descendent of a wealthy inventor and his mother was the heir to Beck engraving company and the family developed a booming tourist town with attractions including the infamous schooner “Lucy Evelyn” (more on that later). Grammy was from a very different background as the daughter of a working-class veteran. Together they had a very forbidden love.
So as their love grew and they knew they wanted to be together forever they decided their best option was to run away. When I asked Grammy why, she said “it would have been less trouble if we left”. She had never travelled or been away from home, she didn’t even own a suitcase. She packed her things in paper bags and waited for her parents to leave. Pop drove straight through from Boynton Beach to Beach Haven to pick her up. He parked a block away from her home, she got in the car and off they went back to South Florida in his 1956 Ford Crown Victoria. She was 16 and he was 18.
Since they were too young to legally marry, Pop’s boss, Mr. Culver and his wife Laurie, vouched that they were of age and helped them make an appointment at the courthouse. They completed their blood test, got their marriage license, waited three days, and married on February 3rd 1962 at First Methodist Church in Boynton Beach. Three sons, one adopted son, four grandchildren, nine great grandchildren, and 62 years later - I’m sitting at their dining room table listening to them flirt and banter like they are still in their teens.
It’s been a pleasure and honor to watch two people as happy as they are. In a crazy and complicated world, we’re lucky that their marriage is our guiding star. They've shown wedlock can be fun and set the standard high for what a strong, marriage should be.