Early in 1952, Barbara and George Engle met in Albany, N.Y. at a roller skating rink.
“He asked me to skate with him and we got to know each other a bit,” Barbara recalls. “Then he called me up for a date.”
On October 18, 1952, seven months after meeting, they married. “I overheard one of my aunts saying ‘He’s a nice young man, but they’re young. It won’t last,’” she laughs. Barbara was 18 and George was 22.
On Friday evening the couple celebrated their 65th anniversary with over a hundred friends at the Club House in Harbor Oaks in Fruitland Pak. Their daughter and two of their three sons, who live in Florida, partied with them. The other son wished them well from his home in Albany.
George was an honoree on a recent Honor Flight to Washington, D.C.
“It rained all day in D.C.,” he recalls. “But we had ponchos and umbrellas and we still did everything.”
As well as visiting the monuments, one of George’s favorite recollections was the police escort into the city.
“Sirens and flashing lights. The streets were blocked off and we didn’t stop for anything except Vice President Pence who was crossing in front of us.”
“It was a great trip, but it was tiring,” he remembers. “By the time we got back to the Legion, went through the welcome ceremonies and got home, I’d been up for 27 hours. My guardian, Pete Schwarz, kept falling asleep on the flight home.”
George joined the U.S. Army in early August 1948, took basic training at Fort Bragg, N.C.
“Except for me and two others, everyone in our class was sent to Japan. Three of us were sent to Germany. I’ve never been able to figure out the reason,” George said. He was assigned to an anti-aircraft gun unit near Karlsruhe.
“Our 90mm guns weighed 16 tons and the Cats that hauled them weighed 18 tons. We spent a lot of time driving them around and wrecking the German fields – which is great fun for a bunch of 18 and 20-year-olds.”
Four years after joining, home in Albany on leave, he had planned to return to the Army where a promotion awaited him. Then, he went roller skating one evening and met Barbara, which changed everything.
Married and raising a family, George had his own shop at Iroquois Millworks assembling and repairing Andersen windows. Barbara’s work included over 11 years at the state Motor Vehicle Department.
“My job was to make sure that everyone’s license picture looked like them,” she says. “That was in the days when people came in, we took their photo and mailed the license out to them later.”
Barbara and George were not the stay-at-home types. They belonged to several different organizations and dancing was their passion. “We did square dancing for six nights a week for years and then ballroom dancing,” George says. “I had the square dancing dresses with big petticoats and everything,” Barbara adds.
They recall moving to Florida in 1997. “We were driving around and saw this house on a corner with a ‘For Sale’ sign outside, so we stopped and rang the bell. The owner quickly invited us inside. There was a police show on the TV and she didn’t want to miss any of it. Her husband had died a few years before and she had been praying that someone would come by and make her an “offer.” They still live in the same house. “I love living on a corner,” Barbara says.
After moving to Florida Barbara developed neuropathy in her legs so they switched from dance to karaoke, specializing in songs from the likes of Jim Reeves and Frank Sinatra. They sing two or three evenings a week in addition to being active in the Moose Lodge, Fraternal Order of Eagles, Amvets and events at the Harbor Oaks Club House. They also used to regularly go to events and festivals in The Villages. But attitudes have changed, they say. “People seem to be losing respect each other,” they believe, citing actions like spectators fighting over cheap beads tossed from a parade float.
They rode out recent Hurricane Irma with no serious damage. “We lost power for a couple of days, but that’s all.” Barbara notes. “We had more damage than that in 2004 when we had three hurricanes,” George adds.
In 2004 Barbara was bitten by a brown recluse spider which has caused ongoing health issues over the years and eventually the Engle’s had to curb their traveling.
“We went on something like 13 cruises all over the Caribbean and from Hawaii.”
Now they’re looking forward to having a party to celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary. Which is not bad after the early prediction that it wouldn’t last.
John W Prince is a writer and Villages resident. Learn more at www.GoMyStory.com.
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