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Joyce Faulkner thought our readers would enjoy
reading about her parents’ long love story and how they met. When we
found out that her parents were Mr. and Mrs. Bliss — as in “50
years of wedded Blisses” — we couldn’t resist: We whipped
out the phone book and started searching for other holiday-appropriate
surnames to see whether anybody else had a story. We struck out with the
Weddings; the Valentines didn’t want to cooperate (too busy planning
their big day, we suppose); we never made it to the Sweets; and checking
with the Hugginses and Kissicks seemed like a stretch. — Editor
LOVE IS BLISS —
George Bliss, a handsome 20-year-old from Wisconsin, was on his way with
other soldiers to fight in World War II when their train made a stop in
Riverton, where volunteers passed out coffee and doughnuts to the troops.
Frances Marsh, one of the volunteers, was a teenager —
auburn-tressed, green-eyed, and freckled — when she met Bliss.
“It was just one of those love-at-first-sight
things,” says Joyce Faulkner, one of the Blisses’ daughters.
Frances, despite being seven years younger than
George, insisted on keeping in touch with the older man. Although he
wasn’t sure why the girl wanted to send him letters, Faulkner says,
George reluctantly poured out his coffee and wrote his address on the
bottom of the paper cup as the train began rolling away from the platform.
After many letters from Frances and five landings in
North Africa and Europe for which the Army awarded him a Silver Star,
George Bliss left the Army in 1946, relocated to Springfield, and married
Frances. They eventually had three daughters and five grandchildren. “Mom was shy and reserved, but she gave the
orders,” says Faulkner, whose family lives in Chatham. “If you
told Dad something about problems in your personal life, he would say,
‘Do you know it snowed 8 feet in Wisconsin?’”
After a fight with cancer, Frances Bliss died in
1992. Now, at age 86, George is himself terminally ill, Faulkner says, with
a sarcoma near his kidney.
“I just think it’s kind of a unique love
story,” Faulkner says. She adds, “Growing up, I thought that
every man was like how my father treated my mother,” she says. “She was his princess on a pedestal.”
LOVE IS TRUE —
Some say true love is hard to find — but Sharon says she found him at
the Illinois State Board of Education. She had been working there for a while when a
nice-looking younger employee caught her eye. She liked that he worked hard
and that they had both been teachers — and it didn’t hurt that
his name was Love.
After three years of dating, Sharon says, Dave Love
proposed during a romantic dinner at the top of the Hilton Springfield. “He invited me to dinner, and he gave me a
diamond ring,” she says. Dave and Sharon married in 1989 and honeymooned in
San Francisco. They moved to Petersburg, into a big, historic house that
now has plenty of room for their young granddaughters, Lillian and Eliza. After all these years, Sharon has nothing but kind
words for her husband. She boasts of his handy nature, how he can fix
anything that breaks. She talks about his gift for restoring old cars, as
well as their shared passion for traveling to old-car shows. She says that Valentine’s Day is always a
special day for them, and she laughs when she admits that they do often get
teased about their last name. But, she says, she’s accepted it with
open arms. “We even have ‘LUV’ on five of our
old cars, on the license plate,” she says.
LOVE FLOWERS —
Alice’s life changed the minute she climbed the steps of the
Jacksonville city bus in 1952. She looked into the eyes of the tall, slim
man sitting behind the wheel and, she says, just knew. “You know how it is,” she says.
“You just see someone, and you think, ‘Wow, I’d like to
go with him.’”
His name was Olen Flowers. Alice thought it a strange name at first, she
says, but eventually grew to love it. They were married in 1954 at
Centenary Church in Jacksonville. It was a simple wedding, Alice says
— they just went to the church and got married. The Flowerses worked together at the Jacksonville
Developmental Center, Alice as a dining-hall assistant and Olin as a
groundskeeper. They later had a daughter and a son, and now they have a
17-year-old granddaughter. Olin died 10 years ago, but Alice, now 75, still
remembers those special things about her husband. He was good-looking,
kind, and easygoing, she says, and also liked to spoil her on
Valentine’s Day. “My husband used to get me flowers,” she
says, “but a lot of times he got me candy.”
Contact R.L. Nave at rnave@illinoistimes.com and
Amanda Robert at arobert@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Feb 7-13, 2008.
