This story has become a legend in my family. When my mother, Lucille Anderson, graduated from college, she was given a prized teaching position as the art teacher in Storm Lake, Iowa. As many of you may know, in small towns at the end of the summer they print all the pictures of the new teachers in the local paper, welcoming them to the community.

My father, Wayne Bauerle, was a successful, single young man working for Standard Oil in Storm Lake at the time. My father was a quiet man, but a very determined one, and when he did speak, you listened! He saw my mother’s picture in the paper that August and decided then and there that he was going to marry her, so he devised a romantic strategy.

My mother was rooming with a widow lady at the time, so my father discovered her address, and every day for the next two weeks, he sent her a bouquet of flowers. Remember that at this point she had never even met him! Finally, her landlady called him and told him that if he sent any more flowers, he’d have to give her more vases. Mother said the house looked like a funeral parlor!

However, my Dad was pretty shrewd, I think, because he waited all that time to call to ask her for a date. How could anyone possibly turn him down after all those flowers?

The end of the story is that they were married, had four children, and were disgustingly romantic (or so we thought as teenagers!) until my father died. And my romantic father made sure that my mother had fresh flowers in our home every week of their marriage!

I often think how glad I am for all those first flowers—I might not have been here without them!THOUGHT TO PONDER: How long has it been since you sent someone you loved flowers?

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