Extra Love Stories

We received many wonderful submissions from alumni for “Love after College” in the winter 2011 issue of Michigan Alumnus magazine. Here are highlights from a few of the extras.

Listen to Love Remembered, the podcast mentioned with the story.

Submitted by Dawna Phillips Kuhne, ’85

In the fall of 1983, I knew of this very brainy, quirky, kind of know-it-all guy, Alexander “Lex” Kuhne, ’84, at the fraternity (Alpha Tau Omega) around the corner from my sorority, Alpha Gamma Delta. My sorority sisters were going to a party at the ATO house and MADE me attend. I had too much work to do and really didn’t want to go. I barely made an effort, wore an old pair of jeans and went with them thinking of all the work that I had to do and how I didn’t want to be there! While I was trying to figure out a way to leave, this very tall guy walked up and turned my necklace around (so the clasp was at the back) and told me to make a “wish.” In my head I thought, “What a come-on line!” but I played along and made a wish. Then I noticed that he was wearing a gold coin on his necklace and asked him who the character was on the gold coin. He replied that it was Alexander the Great. I turned to Lex and said, “You know, Alexander the Great was Macedonian!” and he asked how I knew that and I proudly told him that I was Macedonian. He looked incredulously at me and said that he was Macedonian, too! We got to know each other for a time, and after dating 2 years, Lex asked me to marry him in front of my entire family on Christmas 1986. We were married on July 8, 1989, at St. Clements Orthodox Church in Dearborn, Michigan where all attendees sang “Hail to the Victors!” Last week, we celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary. We have 2 wonderful daughters who are just as “quirky” and smart as their Dad and who we have been grooming since babyhood to be Wolverines!

Submitted by James S. Hogg, JD’77

My parents, John Hogg, ’41, JD’49, and Rosalie (Smith) Hogg, ’42, met at the Tri Delt house on October 12, 1940, an away game football Saturday, for a blind date. They were undergrads and were married just after Mom’s graduation. Roll forward 34 years and 364 days to a football Saturday, October 11, 1975, Michigan at Michigan State, when I was strolling through the law quad with a friend. He introduced me to a fellow law student, Kathy Rhoades, ’75, JD’78. We fell in love and married three years later. The fact that Kathy was a Michigan Tri Delt and that we met about 125 yards from where my parents met always seemed a little scary. However, I only found out how close the date of our meeting was to the date of my parents’ meeting twenty years later, when I told my mother I was planning a surprise romantic getaway to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the day I met Kathy. This year, Kathy and I will celebrate the 35th anniversary of the day we met, as we always do, on the day of the Michigan/Michigan State game. In case you are wondering, we don’t expect any of our children will be in Ann Arbor on that day.

Submitted by Derek Hoffman, ’03

On September 10th, 2009, I was invited to speak at the University of Michigan Chicago Alumni Club to over 100+ attendees on ‘Navigating Anxious Times’ during the economic recession. Unbeknownst to me, my future fiancé, Leah Richards, ’03, was standing in the back of the room with a couple of mutual friends. Following the speaking engagement, I was introduced to Leah through Deena Soffer, ’03, and Amit Kapoor, ’03, both friends of ours. The funny thing is we never met throughout our four years at U of M. I even worked with Leah’s sister, Monica, at a downtown Ann Arbor bar and never met Leah through her. In the moment I was introduced to Leah, I knew something special was about to unfold. Formerly a Chicago resident, I resided in Asheville, North Carolina at the time, living the entrepreneur life with my brother, Damien, and growing “Wall Street Cheat Sheet” from ground zero to what the Wall Street Journal now calls one of the top finance sites on the web! Since I had to fly up to Chicago for the speaking engagement, Leah and I would now embark on a long distance relationship after we met. Over the course of 10 months, we visited each other every month in both Chicago and Asheville, managed to attend a U of M Football game together, met in Boston, NYC and South Florida as well. On July 4th, 2010, 10 months after first meeting, I asked her to share her journey with me for the rest of our lives right before the sunset and fireworks. It was a magical evening for two Wolverines. We look forward to sharing our energetic pride in U of M with others and how it brought us together! GO BLUE!

Submitted by Mary (Gratzer) Briggs, ’52, and Donald Briggs, DDS’54

This was the late 1940s and early 1950s at U of M when the strength of a dating relationship was signaled not only by how often you dated but also when you were dating. And that’s because the university controlled the comings and goings of its female population with what we called “hours,” or in more direct terms, a curfew. On weekdays, women had to be back in the dorms or sororities by 10:00 p.m. and on week-ends the curfew was 12:30 a.m.

Our first date [covert language for “a date with a 10:00 curfew”] was so successful that it led to the ubiquitous coffee date every single night that week. Week-end dates usually concluded on the steps of the dorms with the mass kiss-in. It was the goodnight kiss that went on and on and on until the last moment when the doors were locked. And there were many participants. That could be a little awkward on first dates but it didn’t take long before we joined the crowd. This was starting to get serious!

We’ve now been married for 57 curfew-free years. At this point in our lives, we’re most apt to call it a night by 10:00 p.m.—even on week-ends!

Submitted by Mitch Rosenwasser, ’85

I first met my wife, Jen Rosenwasser, ’91, in 1982, when I dated her counselor at Camp Tamarack. In 1984, she was one of 24 campers, and I was one of 4 staff on a 34-day bus trip to the Western U.S. She was 14, I was 21, and she said she had a crush on me and tried to impress me by climbing Angel’s Landing in Zion National Park even though she was petrified of the heights and exhausted from the 10 miles we’d already hiked that day. We reconnected in 1990, when she came into the Brown Jug late one night with her boyfriend of nearly 4 years, and I waited on them. We were both working toward our teaching certifications at U-M, and began dating in 1992. Three years later, on March 11th, 1995, we were married, and pre-wedding pictures included a shot of us holding a Michigan flag, and the party included the official launch of the flutter fetti helmet cannon (I worked for a meeting and event planning company), with, of course, Maize and Blue flutter fetti. Today, we live in a home with an octagon Michigan rug, block M’s in the backsplash of the kitchen and in the tile in the shower of the master bath.

Submitted by Lenore “Lea” (Chaice) Mintz, ’44

On September 26, 1942, my parents took me to Grand Central Station from our home in Newark, New Jersey, to put me on the WOLVERINE, the 6:12 P.M. train leaving for Chicago with a stop in Ann Arbor at 8 A.M. the next morning. I had just turned seventeen years old in August, had never been to Ann Arbor, and was thrilled to be off to college. I was seated with a distant cousin, whom I had never met before, who was a transfer student, also starting at Michigan that semester. About a half hour into the train ride, a very handsome guy stopped at our seats and started a conversation with my cousin. It was not long before I was a part of the conversation and very impressed with him. He then invited me to join him in his section of the train. Without a second thought, I agreed to join him and spent a wonderful trip to Ann Arbor with a man who became my husband two years later! My two years at Michigan were amazing. Unfortunately, World War II made it impossible for us to have more than one year together in Ann Arbor. My soon-to-be husband enlisted in the United States Navy in the Spring of 1943, entered the V 12 program at Michigan in June of that year, and then went on to the Mid-Shipman School at Abbott Hall in Chicago. I remained at school for my sophomore year, living in Martha Cook. When he graduated from Abbott Hall on March 17, 1944 (and qualified for his U of M degree as well), we became engaged, with the wedding to follow on July 4, 1944. My wonderful husband Lewis R. Mintz, passed away on August 31, 1996. We had been married for 52years. We have three sons, all Michigan graduates, and all of whom went on to different law schools. We have eight grandchildren ranging in age from twelve to thirty-one years. I did graduate from a local college exactly thirty years from the time I had hoped to from Michigan, but my “love affair” and the war did not make that possible.

Submitted by Margaret Shackell-Dowell, PhD’99

My now-husband and I met in the doctoral program at U-M! We are both from different parts of Canada and ended up finding each other at Michigan. My six-year-old decided that we all needed Batman T-shirts, so we got them and occasionally have “Family Bat Day.”

Submitted by Michele Fronk Schuckel, ’95

My husband, Clint Schuckel, ’95, and I first met when we were living at Couzens Hall when I was a freshman and he a sophomore. I easily recall flirting over Vernors floats (a novelty to me, being from Massachusetts) but Clint doesn’t (“I wrote you off since you had a boyfriend already,” he says.) There was always chemistry but the timing was never right as we crossed paths over the next three years. We dated briefly prior to graduation in 1995 then went our separate ways, with Clint heading to grad school in Texas and me to Detroit to work. Three years later, I received an email from Clint with a why-U-of-M-is-superior-to-OSU joke (well, a truth!) and some ‘what are you up to’ questions. He was living in D.C., and I, in Boston at the time. We met for dinner when I traveled to D.C. for business. We subsequently broke off then-serious relationships (very uncharacteristic for both of us!), flirted and courted over email, trained long-distance for a marathon together, and were married 22 months later. We watched the OSU game from a bar between our ceremony and reception with our mainly Wolverine bridal party. The bridesmaids carried maize and blue flowers. We have three beautiful kids who all know the fight song and celebrated our 10-year anniversary in November.

Submitted by Atticus Flores, ’02

My wife, Kimberly, ’02, and I are both Alumni and graduated in 2002. The interesting twist to our story is that we didn’t actually meet until our last day of class at the University. I was a freshman in 1997, and my wife was a freshman in 1998. I was an engineering student, and she was an art student. We often wonder if we passed each other while walking between classes on North Campus, but sadly, although we were both on campus for 4 years, we never met. It seems fate had a different idea. My roommate and I had a barbeque to celebrate the last day of classes, and my wife unintentionally skipped an official event for her marching band sorority to attend. The real surprise is that my wife is a vegetarian, and didn’t usually come to barbeques. She actually dated my roommate that summer, and when he later moved to Pennsylvania for grad school, we remained friends. Our friendship would later blossom into love, and a long term relationship. In the fall of 2007, I proposed under a tree in the Arb, and in June 2009, we were married in Ann Arbor. We still visit campus for football games, squirrel club meetings, and many other University and Alumni events. The University is a central part of who we are as individuals, and as a couple, and we wouldn’t want it any other way.

Submitted by Marty Ferriby, ’71, MALS’72

I connected with former Michigan Daily editor, Roger Rapoport, ’68, when he came to Muskegon in 1995 to give a lecture on his writing and to receive anaward. I am the director of the Hackley Public Library in Muskegon, sponsor of the lecture. Roger’s dad lives in Muskegon and he graduated from high school here but had moved to California right after graduation. I started at Michigan in 1968 and remember clearly sitting at breakfast in Helen Newberry residence as a freshman, observing people reading the Daily and shaking their heads and saying “It’s not the same as when Rapoport was here”, so I had heard about Roger and was looking forward to meeting him. Little did I know! It was a great lecture. We fell in love and kept up a long distance relationship for seven or eight years, even after we married in 2000, until he moved back. We owe it all to the Daily.

Submitted by Frank Benesh, ’50

It was the second semester of 1946, Speech 31….taught in Angel Hall. The class was composed of about 60% WWII veterans, studying with the help of the GI Bill of Rights. We veterans had a lot of interesting stories to tell in that Speech class. Most of us had been around the world for a couple of years. And some of our military experiences left us unafraid to stand in front of any audience and say anything, so it wasn’t easy for the younger classmates to give those “A”-winning speeches. The competition was pretty rough. The second week of the class a young, pretty girl with a small voice and wavy brown hair stood in front of the class to deliver her 3-minute speech on “How to Do Something.” She started slowly, telling us about the farm she grew up on…“Oh no,” I thought, “this poor farm girl is going to tell us how to raise hay.” But then her voice strengthened and she told us how she cared for her sheep, specially one sickly one named Eddie. When she finished I said to myself, “There’s a real person. Anyone who can show that much love and care for a little sheep has to have a lot going for her.” Now, 54 years, five children (two of them adopted), 16 grandchildren and 4 great-great grandchildren later, she’s still that same real person I met in Speech 31 in Angel Hall.

Submitted by Bob Ring, MSE’63, AE‘65

Who would have thought that a visit to an online dating service ten years ago by a retired aerospace engineer in Tucson, Arizona would result in a match of University of Michigan graduates: Bob Ring, MSE’63, AE’65, and Pat Wood, ’69, MALS ‘71. Pat then lived in the Phoenix, Arizona. We started e-mailing, at least once a day for about six weeks. Besides both graduating from U of M, the first names of Pat’s late husband, son, and father were the same as my three sons. Pat’s middle name, Ann, was the first name of my deceased wife. We quickly decided we were “right” for each other, and started burning up the highway between our houses. Over the next few years, Pat retired as a librarian, sold her local knitting business, and we combined households in Tucson, where we accepted important new jobs, taking care of each other.

Submitted by Jill Lerner, ’02 – abridged version of a work by Becky Lerner

Jill is from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She comes from a family dense with Penn State loyalty, took another path and graduated from Michigan in 2002. Adam Lerner, ’01, hailing from suburban Chicago, Illinois, comes from a family that bleeds Maize and Blue, and graduated from Michigan in 2001. Jill went on to attend law school at Emory University in Atlanta, while Adam took a job in finance in New York City, where he lived with a fellow Wolverine. Until the summer of 2004, Jill and Adam had seemingly never met despite living across the street from each other for a brief time in undergrad and having numerous mutual friends. Jill landed in Chicago in 2004 to take an internship with a law firm. Adam had recently moved back to Chicago to take on the Chicago financial scene. Both went out one evening to meet with their mutual Wolverine buddy. Upon Jill’s arrival, greetings and hugs all around until she met Adam. “Hi! I’m Jill,” she said as she put her hand out for a formal greeting. Adam recognized her. “Actually, we’ve met before,” Adam responded, meeting her hand with his. Jill was taken aback with the unexpected response. “We met once in college, but you were kind of a b*tch.” Adam rehashed the brief story to Jill about when they were just seats apart from each other on a bus for a fraternity/sorority social. Adam, in an attempt to be funny, made a cheesy joke knowing that it always got laughs. Jill overheard Adam, and mumbled to her friend, “Listen to that guy. He thinks he’s funny…” to which Adam replied, “I’m sorry. Was I talking to you?” This, definitely, was a match made in heaven.

Years later, putting their somewhat rocky history aside, Jill inevitably noticed Adam’s charm, while he couldn’t help but be swept away by Jill’s witty sense of humor. In 2005, Jill moved to Chicago. In 2007, Adam and Jill got engaged. In 2008, they were married. In 2009, they acquired their first Wolverine addition: A black Labradoodle puppy who they named Melvin. They look forward to welcoming (human) Wolverine legacies into the family in the future. Jill currently works in legal recruiting; Adam graduated with his MBA from University of Chicago and continues to work in finance. Today the couple remains happy, healthy, and in love in Chicago, Illinois.

Submitted by Ben Burns, ’02

On the night of January 27, 2001, Laura’s 21st birthday, it was after midnight, and we happened to be at the same house party on White Street. Laura, ’02, was unsuccessfully attempting to convince her girl friends to dance with her. I was standing within earshot of their conversation waiting for my friends to return with their coats, so that we could head home. I was unaware of the girls’ conversation, but then Laura’s friend Abby said in my general direction, “Why don’t you dance with him.” I am not spontaneous, but in this case the opportunity literally hit me smack in the face. Before Laura could answer, I whisked her off to the dance floor. Once we met, it became evident that our social circles were tremendously interconnected. Laura had worked with one of my Benjamin St. roommates (one of our groomsmen) in a small group at the Business School. I worked as a Communication Coordinator for the Peer Mentorship Program with one of her roommates. My grandmother is also from Laura’s hometown of Adrian and Laura’s eldest brother settled in my hometown of Grosse Pointe in the late 1990’s. After graduation in 2002, Laura accepted a job in Brand Management with Kraft Foods in Glenview, Illinois, and I was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps. We spent the next two years apart. We got engaged over Thanksgiving in 2003, several months before I deployed to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. We got married in February 2005, after my return from Iraq. We have lived in the New York City area since the fall of 2006 when I finished my active duty service.

Submitted by Ann Hartman, ’85

It was a typical late October Saturday in Washington, DC. The mall was gray and quiet in the late afternoon as I was out for a quick run. This would be a short run, as I was in haste to return to my group house on 3rd Street, SE, just blocks from the Library of Congress. That evening my housemates and I were holding a dinner party. There was still a number of preparations to go, but after cleaning the house for a huge chunk for the day, I was aggravated. Where the heck were the other two housemates while we were scrubbing and straightening? Clearly, I needed to run. Only that would whisk the resentment out of me, freshen my brain, and put me in a good mood to begin sous chefing, cooking, and co-hostessing our event. Rushing in my into my room in a bad temper to change into running clothes I yanked open the bureau drawer. Staring at me was my least favorite running clothes. Very tight tights and my ugly Michigan sweatshirt. “I hate this sweatshirt” I remember thinking, “but I have to get going or else I’ll never fit my run in”. So I pulled it on and headed out. It was white, with a big maize colored M, outlined in blue. Not bad. It was the rest of the shirt that did it in. In the middle of the M was a rose crest and under the M was proudly written “1988 Big Ten Champs” and “1989 Rose Bowl Champs”. This shirt was given to me by my father, a proud Michigan fan and alum. So although it was not my taste, it had sentimental value. I believe it to be the only article of clothing my father ever directly purchased for me in my life. Quickly, I forgot about the hideous sweatshirt and got about the business of running.

While stopping to do some leg lifts near the Botanical Gardens, another lone exerciser arrived. He was on a bike and stopped to do some chin ups. I looked over. Hey, I think that’s Jim, a guy that had recently started volunteering with me at a women’s overnight shelter, I thought. Just as my lips were forming the words “Hey Jim”, the guy that was now clearly not Jim looked at me. Embarrassment spread across my face. He was far enough away that an explanation would have been awkward, so I did 1 or 2 more lifts and left. I went on running, thinking about the dinner, until my thoughts abruptly ceased by these words: “Hey, did you go to Michigan?” I looked around to where the words were coming from. To my left, the bicycle guy, not Jim, had ridden up within shouting distance from me. So far from my brain was my ugly sweatshirt that I couldn’t imagine why this stranger was asking me such a question. After pausing to pull my brain into the moment (and probably looking like a dork), I had some inspiration to look down, where upon I couldn’t miss the blazing yellow M. So I shouted back, “Yeah, did you”? Not Jim’s name is John, and he went to Michigan Law School (Class of 1989). This past October, we took our three children back to Ann Arbor for his 20 year law school reunion. In May, we will celebrate 19 years of marriage. And I still have the sweatshirt. It is my favorite.

Winter 2010 Issue Extras

Hot Classes on Campus

Read more about popular classes Michigan Alumnus visited for its winter 2010 issue. Read more

Food Art

Artist John Tebeau, ’86, photographed Michael Stern, ’68, for “Leaner Times,” the article in the winter 2010 issue of Michigan Alumnus magazine about Stern and two other alumni who are prominent in food media. That project led Tebeau to a new one: 30 paintings in 30 days, all inspired by food. See a slideshow of his paintings.