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Love, Fred

Love, loss, gratitude, memories, heartbreak, passion: Our lives are filled with constant ups and downs. In the really good moments, you are infinite, untouchable. In those darker moments, everything can seem to be crashing down. What are these moments if not pieces of ourselves that we can share with the ones that we love the most. Fred Smith, a Woodland security guard for seventeen years, will be celebrating his sixtieth wedding anniversary with his wife, Mary Ann, this coming August. 

“I have found that when I sit back and think about what I have been through, I have always remembered one thing, no matter what day I have, everything will be fine because my person loves me. That is the most important thing because without that, what do you have?” asked Fred.

Fred and Mary Ann first met in 1960, after they had both recently graduated from high school. They worked in the same building over the summer, Fred working in printing and Mary Anne working as a secretary. 

“While I was working, I would go around the office and ask everyone if they needed any supplies because I knew that the supplies were by Freddy’s office. I always made sure that I was dressed nicely when I saw him,” said Mary Anne. 

“On my last day at the office I went to see Freddy and said ‘This is my last day at the office, you are going to have to give me a call sometime.’ He said he would, and so I asked him if he wanted my number. Girls didn’t usually do things like that back then, but I was determined.”

Mary Anne recalled that Fred proceeded to write her number down on his hand.

“I never washed her number off my hand; I just simply let it fade away slowly,” Fred admitted.

Thirty minutes after Mary Anne left the office, Fred had called her to set up their first date. The couple decided to go bowling that night, which led to a second date as well.

“You know the saying goes ‘we had a flat tire; that’s why we were late.’ Well, we really had a flat tire. My curfew was 10:30, and I got home at 11:30 to find my father sitting on the porch with a shotgun resting on his shoulder,” said Mary Anne. 

“I was so scared, as soon as I let Mary Anne  out of the car I drove off. I did not go back to her house for three days. When I finally went back, her father asked me why I drove off so quickly, so I told him I was nervous because he had a gun. It turns out he goes hunting with his buddies at night, and he was just waiting for them to pick him up,” said Fred.

Despite running off, when Fred came back, he never left again. The couple fell faster for each other than they ever thought they could. When both Fred and Mary Anne were eighteen, Fred got down on one knee and asked Mary Ann to marry him in her living room. After sixty-two-years together, the couple is just as in love as they have ever been. When Fred began working at Woodland seventeen years ago, he began a tradition to write a love letter to Mary Ann every morning before he goes in for work.

“I like to wake up around three, read the paper, wash clothes for my wife, and then write her a letter around 5:30. I have to make sure that I’m quiet so I don’t wake her up,” said Fred.

An estimated 6,205 letters have been written in the past seventeen years. Although the messages vary in length and topic, every letter ends in I love you. 

“For me, when you really love and care about someone, it is important to let that individual know how much she means to you each and every day,” Fred stated.

“Mary Ann was my first love. Somehow, you just know when you meet the right person, it’s a feeling you have inside of you, and you just have to hope that the other person feels the same way that you do.”

Both Fred and Mary Ann were born in 1942. On September fourteenth, Fred will be eighty years old, and on November eleventh, Mary Ann will be eighty as well. The couple has found that as they have gotten older, they realize how blessed they are to have someone who loves and cares about them.

“Sometimes in life, things happen. It could be a sickness, the loss of someone who was close to both of you, in those days, I want to let her know how fortunate we are to be together all this time,” Fred said.

When Mary Anne was sixteen years old, she recalls walking down the road to the candy store with her friends. On the way there, she noticed a car accident on the road. Fred had gotten out of the car behind the accident to explain what happened leading up to the collision.

“After we left I told my friend Beverly, ‘I don’t know that man, but one day, I will meet him again, and I will marry him,” said Mary Ann.

Both Fred and Mary Ann understand that life is what you make of it, and it has many ups and downs; however, they figured out early on that any troubles they face can be conquered together.

“I would marry him again and again,” said Mary Anne.

Ava Muharem

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