By Faith Perrett Hanson Specht
I went to my Senior Prom on May 10, 1952 in Cherokee. Afterwards, a classmate took four or five of us girls to the Cobblestone Ballroom in Storm Lake. I met Don Specht from Cherokee and we danced the night away. He took me home and we made our first official date for May 17, 1952. I can’t remember how the other girls got home!
We dated all summer. I started working at the Northwestern Bell telephone office in Cherokee in August and he also worked there. He left for the U.S. Army in September. He came home at Christmas time and then reported to Camp Gordon, GA. Don sailed to Germany on the USNS General H.F. Hodges in June of 1953. During that time, I received a postcard from him. I also have some pictures of Don and me and his classmate, LeRoy Rupp and his girlfriend, Bonnie Hansen of Cherokee that were taken on July 4, 1952 at Arnolds Park at Okoboji. (They just celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary.) We wrote to each other for awhile and then lost track of one another.
I married Don Hanson in August of 1954 and Don Specht married Kathleen Wagner in October of 1955. My husband passed away in 1984. I didn’t know where Don had been living until I read in the paper that Kathleen had passed away in 1998. He had been living in Fort Dodge, Mason City, and then back to Fort Dodge. I hadn’t thought about him in 50 years.
Then in September of 2002, I took Thelma Gravenish to Bob and Elvera Specht’s 50th wedding anniversary at Trinity Lutheran Church in rural Marcus. We were sitting and eating our lunch when this nice gentlemen asked if he could sit by Thelma. They visited and she asked him if he was from Trinity Church. He told her he was a cousin of Bob’s from Fort Dodge—Don Specht. I just about fell off my chair! I shook his hand and said I hadn’t seen him in 50 years. I evidently didn’t say my maiden name as he didn’t recognize me and I really didn’t recognize him either, just the name. We visited awhile with another cousin of his from Cleghorn, Catherine Specht Wendt, and then went our separate ways.
On the Sunday before Christmas, I had been shopping in Sioux City with my daughter, Rhonda Snyder from Cherokee and her daughter, Amanda who was teaching in San Antonio, TX and was home on Christmas vacation. When I got home I had a telephone message from Catherine saying that Don Specht had called her and wanted to wish her and Faith a Merry Christmas. Through a misunderstanding, Catherine thought he meant to wish me a Merry Christmas! (He really meant Faith Bentz, Catherine’s daughter.) So, on Monday, I called my friend in Fort Dodge to get Don’s telephone number and address. I wrote on December 24 and he called me on December 26. I told him it would be nice to get together sometime to talk and reminiscence about old times. Neither one of us had any intentions of anything more than that.
He didn’t waste any time! He drove to Marcus on Saturday, December 28. We looked at pictures, ate dinner at the Big Booth and I gave him a tour of the town of Marcus. We even drove out to the new Ethanol Plant and discovered we both had attended the ground breaking ceremony earlier, but of course, didn’t know the other was there. Then we cemetery hopped—going to Maryhill where Kathleen and other relatives were buried and then to Quimby where Don Hanson was buried as well as some of my relatives. Talk about an exciting adventure!
By then we had done a lot of talking and reminiscincing about a lot of things. After two or three weeks, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life in unity with him, and I think he felt the same way.
On February 16, we attended the 50th wedding anniversary party of my uncle and aunt, LeRoy and Pearl Jenness of Cherokee. Afterwards we took my daughter, Rhonda and her husband, Mike to Storm Lake to revisit the scene of their first meeting—Cobblestone which is now closed. They were taking our pictures when Don dropped to his knees and proposed to me. He also asked for Mike and Rhonda’s consent for her mother to marry him. They said “YES”! He put a ring on my finger and we were officially engaged. It was very romantic! We were standing in 2-3 inches of snow, 15° and coatless, but still romantic! We sure shocked them! When Don dropped to his knees, Mike said, “This is getting serious!!”
We were married at Faith Lutheran Church in Marcus on May 17, 2003—51 years after our first date. It was an informal wedding with no invitations sent. We just asked for blessings on our marriage.
Sometimes fate or the Good Lord brings people together. Whatever it was, I am so grateful. I will always be thankful to Catherine for her role in getting us together. We had ten wonderful years together before the Lord decided to call Don home on June 14, 2013. May he rest in peace.
I was not born in Marcus but have spent over half my life here. I was born in Cherokee, IA on September 17, 1934. My family farmed near Cherokee and then moved to a farm by Quimby in 1942. I attended country schools and graduated from Quimby High School in 1952. When I married Don Hanson, we moved to Albert City, IA and lived there 16½ years before moving to Marcus in 1971. Don and I raised 5 children, all graduates from Marcus High School. I now have 13 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.