his wife day while on the USS Saratoga

White Bear Lake and continued his service in the Navy Reserves for 20 years.

“Greg was a person that was he always wanted to move,” she laughed. “We had a really nice place in Hugo, and then we bought 80 acres with a beautiful house and outbuildings in Boynton, Oklahoma. It was in the middle of nowhere and we didn’t know a soul. Greg had his horses and he was crazy about horses.”

While in Oklahoma, the family would celebrate Easter, Christmas and Thanksgiving in one weekend and called it “Chrisgiving.”

“We moved back to Minnesota because Greg told our children that when they got married and had a family, we would move back because they were not real happy about us moving,” Suzanne said. “We moved to White Bear Township in 2016.” figure that out by proxy.”

Greg returned home for Christmas and the couple got married on Wednesday, Dec. 29. After the wedding, the couple moved to an apartment in Mayport, Florida.

They were aware that the ship was being deployed to the Mediterranean ed. By Monday he was gone.”

Rather than be stuck in Florida by herself for eight months, Suzanne called her father and asked him to come get her and help her move back to Minnesota.

“He came down with my little brother and sister and we went to Disney World

Two years later Greg started having symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. “I ended up having to put him in a home because he was just combative, and I just couldn’t handle it,” Suzanne said.

In December 2021 Greg passed away five days before the couple’s 50th wedding anniversary. “We had a big party planned, and it was three days before Christmas.”

Greg got to read some of the letters before he died and even though he had