I taught at Riverview Park from 1966, until January, 1969. During the summer of 1968, Ron Gerber, a friend from college, came by and we started dating. Before he left to return to his Air Force assignment in Germany, he proposed and I accepted. I resigned my position in January and flew to Germany in February, 1969. We found out that if people married in Germany, the government charged a fee of several hundred dollars. So Ron arranged, as many service people did, for us to be married in Basel, Switzerland. That civil service ceremony took place on February 11th and was necessary before any church service could take place. We took a honeymoon in Bertchesgarden, Germany and a trip through Austria and Switzerland.

         

The people at the hotel somehow knew we were getting married. When we returned to our room, we found this lovely site. Next is a picture of a street in Bertchesgarden at night. It was a beautiful place. We thought about trying to learn to ski. But, the first morning, we saw several people on crutches and decided against it!

         

   

While in Austria, we saw the church used in the "Sound of Music", Mozart's home, and we toured a salt mine. Here we are dressed for the mine tour, and on the train that took us into the mine.

We returned to Weisbaden, Headquarters of the United States Air Force in Europe (USAFE). Ron had a TDY (temporary duty assignment) and had to leave for 2 weeks, so we had our church ceremony on base on March 11th.

         

It looks like Ron needed a little bit of encouragement, but we really did get married. The wedding photo was taken at a reception given for us by friends of Ron's.

Germans celebrate the harvest during the fall with a time called Fasching. Everyone dresses up like we do for Halloween. There are lots of parties, lots of fun, and lots of beer!

We were only in Germany for a year. During that year, we took a quick 3-day trip to Paris and the wine region of France. It was an American Express tour that went something like this: "Get off the bus, you have 5 minutes to take the picture, get on the bus", and so it went by pretty quickly.