How did you meet Dad, and what was your first date like?

I was not supposed to come home for Christmas.  I was attending Snow College in Ephraim, Utah and enjoying it.  I was going to spend the Christmas Holidays with Harold B. Lee and his family!  I was really excited about that.  One morning I got a call from my mom telling me that a guy showed up on the doorstep and asked to marry me.  I hadn't even heard from him in almost 2 months!  Mom wouldn't listen.  She kept saying, "But he says he wants to marry you."  I kept saying that I didn't want to marry him!  The next think I knew, Mom had me checked out of my classes for the semester and on a jet to Germany (2 weeks before finals). 

When Marianne met me at the airport with my dad, she kept telling me about this new guy at church named Clyde.  I was not interested in anyone named Clyde because we had a kind of a crotchety uncle named Clyde and was imagining all sorts of weird things with this guy my sister was going on and on about.  I finally promised her that I would leave him alone.  I truly had no intention of breaking that promise.

When we got home, Marianne and I made sugar cookies.  Clyde appeared on the doorstep to return a book.  I suddenly understood why Marianne was so enamored with him.  He was cute!  My mom decided that she wanted Clyde for a son-in-law and actually set up an activity every night I was home and invited Clyde.  We never actually had a date alone until after we were engaged.  People in the ward were betting on how quickly we would be engaged and rooting for us.  Mom wanted it to happen so badly that she actually went to the other guys commanding officer and got him an early dismissal from the military so he would be out of the picture!

I got home to Germany on December 6 and had my diamond ring on 3 January.  Pretty quick.  But we waited a very long year to be married in the Manti Temple on December 29 because Clyde was a brand new member of the Church.  It was worth the wait because it was those promises that we made that have kept us together for 40 years.  There are couple of times that had we not taken those vows and covenants seriously that it would have been quite easy to pack up and walk away.  I am so glad we worked very hard to keep it together.