Our story began in 1947 on a streetcar in Milwaukee as we were on our way to school, Lois to St. Mary’s and Henry to Boy’s Tech. We started dating and became engaged at Christmas of 1949. We planned a wedding for May of 1951, but the war broke out so we moved the date up to November 18th, 1950, and were married at Zoar Lutheran Church in Milwaukee. In 1957 Henry left his job as a draftsman to work at Walther Memorial Lutheran Church and School as a custodian. Henry later became a Lay Minister there and held that position till he retired in 1998. As Lay Minister, Henry started a food pantry and clothes closet and daily went out into the community to help those in need and invite them to church so they too could know the love of God in their lives.

We were blessed with five children who all went on to graduate from Walther Memorial Lutheran Elementary School and then Milwaukee Lutheran High School. We both felt a great commitment to send all our children through Christian education, no matter the sacrifices that would need to be made, and there were many. Knowing about God was certainly more important than the things we would have to give up in order to afford to send them to a Christian school. Today our family has grown from 5 children into 15 grandchildren, 24 great grandchildren and 1 great, great grandchild. We currently live at Cedar Ridge Community in West Bend.

For as long as we can remember, we have always started our day together with a devotional bible reading and prayer. During the day you can often hear Henry singing many of the great old hymns and Lois sitting in her rocker praying for her children. We have been blessed to be a team for 72 years and understand each others’ weaknesses and strengths; Henry is blind and Lois is weak, so together we are able to work together as one, with Lois being the eyes to see and Henry the strength to get them through the day. We know that our marriage is represented by a cord of three strings, one is Jesus, one is Henry, and one is Lois and braided together our marriage will always be strong!

Marriage Advice: Our piece of marriage advice is to put God first and commit to always follow the way of the Lord! Couples must keep up the conversation between both of them every day and keep that line of communication open with God in constant prayer, separately and most importantly together as a couple.