What is your middle name?
Anne. With the "e" … I'm guessing since Mom decided to leave the "h" off of Sara, she decided to get a little more creative with middle name. Mom's name is Jane Ann, and when I was little I added an "e" to her middle name in my baby book because I thought she must have misspelled it by accident. Oops.
I don't really know why she spelled my name different than hers, but it ended up working out well for me. When I was a junior in high school I had the lead in the play The Diary of Anne Frank, and it wasn't until the wrap party that we realized her name was built into the middle of mine: Sara "Anne Frank"l. At the time it felt like destiny. :)
How old are your siblings?
I'm the youngest of six kids. In order, we are:
Jerry: 45
Laura: 44
Jim: 43
Janette: 42
Steve: 40
Me: 37
The first three overlap ages every year… so when my brother Jim was born, my oldest brother Jerry was still one and Laura was in between them.
CRAZY.
Apparently, every year at the baptism my grandpas would say goodbye to each other by saying, "I'll meet you back here this time next year."
Poor Mom. :)
How did your parents meet?
I love this story. My mom was from a small, neighboring farm community called St. Benedict and attended the public school there. But since the Catholic high school was open in Algona, the priest in her town decided to help out enrollment and told my Grandma Flo that he wouldn't give her absolution for her sins unless her kids attended the Catholic school [Garrigan].
Seriously.
So, seeing that her soul was at stake, and she wasn't allowed to take part in communion unless she received absolution, Gram pulled mom out of school and away from all of her friends to send her to Garrigan.
Thank goodness. Because that's where my dad went to school every day. He was "that guy" with the cool van and a boat, and was the one everyone wanted to dance with at The Surf Ballroom on the weekends. He was smooth. :)
Anyway, Mom and a friend of hers were worried that they weren't going to get dates to the prom, and a nun at the school told them if they went into the chapel during lunch and said three Hail Mary's on a Tuesday, they would get dates for the prom.
Mom swears that they went into the chapel that day, walked back out and the first person she saw was Dad. He walked right up to her and asked her to the prom… and the rest was history.
I never tested this theory myself, but all you single girls out there… tomorrow is Tuesday. Find a chapel over your lunch hour and report back if you magically find the loves of your lives.
Maybe that nun was onto something. You never know. :)