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Family Stories
A potpourri of stories about various family members or events
How My Parents Met
Both of my parents were born in 1926. While my mother, Virginia Smith, graduated from high school in the spring of 1944, my father, Edmund Hibbard, graduated in the spring of 1943. In the fall of 1944, my mother started at St. Cloud State College (SCSC). While my father may have also started there in the fall of 1943 (I am not yet sure at this point), I know that he was a student there in the fall of 1944. Most of the rest of what I write is based on interviews with my mother and from letters my dad wrote to his sister Sylvia.
In December of 1944, the college had a certain type of party – Mom called it a "basket social". Here is one description of such an event. Dad approached Mom and wanted to know which basket was hers, but she didn't tell because she was suspicious. She told me that since there were 13 guys and 280 girls at the college at this time, this made him suspicious of his motives. Someone told her to be nice to him since he was a very nice person. Dad then called on her after winter break, and they started seeing each other. He was there only for a few more months before he had to report to the draft board. When he was finally ready to leave for Camp Pendleton, Mom remembered that he kissed her goodbye in front of his parents.
While they were apart, they wrote to each other to some degree (based on what Dad wrote to Sylvia). Dad seemed to be vacillating, as he communicated with his sister Sylvia about whether he should pursue her or not. When he was finally done with his military service, he came back and continued his studies at SCSC. He must have made an affirmative choice, since they got married on September 11, 1948, in St. Cloud. After this, he continued his studies at the University of Minnesota while mom was teaching at Mound, Minnesota. They lived with Sylvia and Vern, near Lake Nokomis.
Mom and Dad's wedding day
See their wedding announcement from the newspaper.
Published 2021-02-13. Revised 2025-07-05.
If you find any error(s) in the text, please let me know. Thanks. Contact me with errors or comments using hibbardac@gmail. [Back to the top] [About the author, Al]
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