Seventy Years Ago Today in Crown Heights: Our Parents' Wedding at the Park Manor - May 28, 1949

65 Years Ago Today in Crown Heights: Our Parents' Wedding at the Park Manor -- and, yes, they are still married!

Happy 65th Anniversary to Our Mom and Dad

Mom & Dad on the beach in Rockaway Beach, July 1945

Mom & Dad at the bungalows of Rockaway Beach, September 4, 1946

Since we haven't been able to find any anniversary cards above the 60th (oddly, five years ago we were unable to find any of those), this is the best we can do for our mom and dad, Marilyn and Daniel Grayson.

They were married sixty-five years ago today, on May 28, 1949 at the Park Manor on Eastern Parkway and Rogers Avenue, then considered the premier kosher catering hall in Brooklyn; now it's the First Baptist Church of Crown Heights, which we lived around the corner from just a few months ago.  (Photo copyright Matthew X. Kiernan)

Early Saturday Evening at the Apache Junction Health Center: Our Mom and Dad on their 62nd Wedding Anniversary

Sixty-two years ago today, on the Saturday evening of Memorial Day weekend, May 28, 1949 at the Park Manor on Eastern Parkway and Rogers Avenue (now the First Baptist Church of Crown Heights),

our parents were married.

They met several years before that. Here are our mom and dad at the bungalows of Rockaway Beach, September 4, 1946, on Labor Day weekend.

We always remember them being so glamorous, as in this photo from our middle brother's bar mitzvah in January 1968 (when we were a senior at Midwood High School)

or as in these pics we took in 1970 when we were a 19yo college sophomore:


As he has done for the last nine months, our dad went twice today to the Apache Junction Health Center to spoon-feed our mom, who's had Alzheimer's disease for many years, both breakfast and dinner.

It is inspiring and beautiful to see them still together.

We've been accompanying our dad every morning and evening since we got here, and in the evenings we're usually joined by one of our brothers. Our middle brother was here in the morning

and this evening our youngest brother arrived

with his girlfriend, and after dinner,

we went out, as we usually do, to the pretty garden courtyard after our mom has finished her (puréed) meal.

Recently we came across a little memo pad that had notes we made from listening to a talk at Changing Hands Bookstore a few years ago (so we could blog about it). In riffling through the pages, we found this. We must have asked Mom to write something to see if she could still write. She lost that ability, along with many others, years ago, but we're all very grateful that she's still with us.

More wedding photos at Facebook album.

Happy 60th Anniversary to Our Mom and Dad

Mom & Dad at the bungalows of Rockaway Beach, September 4, 1946

Since we spent over an hour yesterday morning driving all over Mesa and the East Valley trying in vain to find a 60th wedding anniversary card (the highest we could find in this part of Arizona was for the 50th), this is the best we can do for our mom and dad, Marilyn and Daniel Grayson.

They were married sixty years ago today, on May 28, 1949 at the Park Manor on Eastern Parkway and Rogers Avenue (now the First Baptist Church of Crown Heights).

Mom & Dad at lunch, Apache Junction, AZ, May 27, 2009