Norwich cadets with their dates on the dance floor at the Junior Week Ball in May 1966. Photo by Roger T. Conant, courtesy NU Archives
LIVES
A Lifetime of Love A look at marriages between Norwich University and Vermont College alumni that have lasted for half a century BY BETH LUBERECKI
D
uring the 1960s, many male students at Norwich searching for love or maybe just a date didn’t have to look much farther than neighboring all-female Vermont College. The two schools, which merged in 1972, maintained a relationship that produced numerous marriages, many of which have lasted 50-plus years. We spoke with some of those longtime couples to find out what it was like to attend all-male and female schools in that time
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period, the finer points of dating, how the major world events and upheaval of the 1960s impacted their lives and relationships, and the secrets of success that have helped their marriages go the distance. Setting the Scene: “It was a different time and different place,” Bill O’Brien ’64 says. “You had very young people who were 21, 22 years of age coming of age very, very quickly with the threat of being separated and going to war. In 1963 and ’64, you had young boys going to military school and
young ladies going to an all-girls school 10 miles apart from one another. There was a lot of chemistry in between that.” Dating life centered around organized events like mixers, ski trips, and casual get-togethers. “This was a period of time when boys could not come in except into a certain area of the front hall of the girls’ dormitory to pick you up,” Carol (Lauria) Nichols VC ’64 recalls. Phil ’66 and Jane Ackley VC ’66 met at a mixer between the schools. “One of the
