I want to tell you a love story.
It isn’t a story that will ever be made into a major motion picture, a best-selling novel, or a television mini-series, but it is a true story, and special, nonetheless.
Our story begins in the summer of 1964, when Larry, 16, called the number for a pipeline, a phone line where multiple people can be on the line at the same time. On the pipeline, he met a girl, also 16, who initially told him her name was Karen Bowman. When he asked where she lived, she gave him the right street in Rochester, but the wrong address.
Larry went house to house looking for Karen, and when he came to one house, a pretty girl with the bluest eyes he’d ever seen answered the door. The girl was the fictional ‘Karen,? but she told him Karen didn’t live there, and then laughed with her sister as Larry left. The girl’s mother learned what was going on and told her daughter to ‘get that boy before he bothers all the neighbors.?
The girl yelled out the door, ‘Hey, Larry, it’s Karen, but it’s really Sherry!?
Larry and Sherry began dating. They broke up a few times in high school, but always got back together.
In 1966, they graduated together from Rochester High School.
A year later, they married. The reception was held in her parents? small garage and it rained, but Larry says they could have gotten married in a phone booth and it wouldn’t have mattered.
They were young and poor and people said it wouldn’t last. Larry admits when he married Sherry, he didn’t have much to give her, but he gave her everything he had.
Their first child, a son, was born in 1968, a month before their 1-year anniversary, while they lived in an apartment. Their second child, a daughter, was born two years later. The family’s first ‘house? was actually a 700-square foot concrete block garage.
Larry worked hard for his family and in 1977 they moved to a 3-bedroom home he helped build in Sterling Heights. Sherry and Larry added three more children to their family, in 1980, 1981, and 1983. They built their dream home in Groveland Township in 1989.
The test of any marriage is hard times. Through the years, Larry worked two full-time jobs and Sherry worked a full-time job, all while raising five children who presented their own challenges. They saw a son off to war. They had job losses. They faced numerous health issues.
But always, they kept their vows to each other? for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, for better, for worse.
And what they have always had is each other and a love that is enduring.
Four of their five children are now married and Larry and Sherry have five grandchildren and one on the way.
Last weekend, they celebrated 40 years of marriage. The couple who started out ‘poor,? is rich beyond measure, in the only things that really count in the end? love and family.
Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad. We love you and we thank you.