Shot through the heart

Afteralmost 67 years of marriage, Mildred Haedge still knows her husband Glen’s military serial number by heart, even though she forgets her own social security number. She spent 33 months writing letters to him during World War II before they were officially engaged.

“I always say it took me six years and two weeks to get him to the altar,” Mildred says.

The two met in 1940 at a church convention. Mildred lived in Austin and Glen in Dallas, so their long courtship consisted mostly of letter writing, though Glen visited several times. In May 1941, they shared their first kiss and spent an afternoon dressed up in their Sunday best drinking Dr Pepper on a motorboat on Lake Austin.

Mildred and Glen only saw each other a few times before he went overseas but built their relationship on paper and postage.

“We did so much writing to each other. We loved each other,” Mildred says.

When the United States entered the war in 1941, Glen — who was an army private — asked Mildred to wait for him. He spent a couple years training in the United

States and eventually headed to Africa, Italy, France and finally Germany, where he was wounded. One month before the war ended, Glen stepped on a landmine that broke his femur and shattered his knee. He was carried on a door from aid station to aid station, about six of which gave him morphine shots.

“I felt like I’d made it through the war because you were in danger of getting killed every day and when I got wounded, I wouldn’t have to face that death every day,” Glen says.

In July 1945, he was sent to the only Texas military hospital that could treat his wounds, in El Paso.

“I always say it took me six years and two weeks to get him to the altar.”

Mildred and her mother hopped on a Greyhound bus in August and went to see him for the first time in almost three years. Glen and Mildred married on June 30, 1946.

Mildred and Glen, who now live together in C.C. Young Retirement Community, were separated again recently. Glen moved to the community’s nursing building after heart trouble. For two years, Mildred walked across the community campus once or twice a day to visit him. They now share an assisted living residence at C.C. Young.

“We’re just glad to be back together,” Mildred says.

After significant time apart, the secret of their marriage is in their togetherness, they say.

“That’s the main thing: putting up with each other,” Glen says. “If we get to arguing with each other, we put up with that.”

“And then we settle it before we go to bed,” Mildred says.

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ELAINE AND FRED Only

three dates. That’s all it took for Fred and Elaine Ekmark to decide to marry.

Well, three dates plus months of hounding on the part of Fred’s sister, Anna, to convince them to go on a date in the first place.

Leah Ekmark, Fred and Elaine’s daughter, says her aunt Anna worked with Elaine at the time, and used the broken record strategy to convince her friend and her brother to meet.

“My mom and dad both said the same thing to my aunt, the matchmaker: ‘Fine, I'll do it but I'm not looking to get married any time soon.’ ” Leah says. “They went on their blind date, and apparently they really hit it off because by the second date they were talking about marriage and on the third date my dad proposed!”

Elaine recalls their first date a bit differently. She later told Anna, “There weren’t any bells and whistles, but he was nice.” Fred, however, left with a different feeling.

“On the first date, it was just like, ‘I want to see that girl some more.’ ”

Fred was 27, and Elaine — then McGarr — was 23. She’d dated plenty of young men, and had even turned down a couple marriage proposals. Of course that made Fred nervous, but he was also confident Elaine was the one.

On their third date, Fred took Elaine to a seafood restaurant. Suddenly Fred couldn’t wait any longer. He reached across the table, took Elaine’s hand and asked her the lifechanging question that was heavy on his mind, “Will you marry me?”

Naturally, Elaine was surprised. But by then, she knew enough to know her answer.

“I said, ‘Yes,’ ” Elaine recalls.

They announced the engagement to their friends and loved ones, and picked a date for the wedding before Fred had even met Elaine’s parents. Elaine’s mother, however, was trusting of her daughter’s discernment, and in a letter to Elaine, she wrote, “I know he must be a fine person for you to have fallen in love with him.” She assured her daughter that “there’s no way you can tell just how long you have to know someone before you can fall in love.”

Anna knew that her friend and brother would hit it off; she just didn’t realize it

“They went on their blind date, and apparently they really hit it off because by the second date they were talking about marriage and on the third date my dad proposed!” would be so quickly.

“My aunt went out of town for a little over a week when my parents had their first date,” Leah says. “By the time she came back, they were engaged!”

They have been married for 38 years and raised two children — Leah, 31, and her brother Ryan, 34. Fred and Elaine agree that the key was being willing to wait until the right person came along and being smart enough to know when it happened.

In one of Fred’s letters to Elaine during their engagement, he wrote that it took an extra special girl to turn his head, “but it sure was worth the wait.”