Charlotte's Peace: Twenty-five Years Together ~ Our Love Story

Our Love Story, Part 1

25 years of loving together...wow!

On May 1, 1997, Marty and I began our lives together and we are still going strong after 25 years.

We met in 1996 when we were enrolled at Southeast Technical College in the Paramedicine Program. This was in Winona, Minnesota. For the first few months we did not like one another. I thought Marty was so annoying with his playing games in class, i.e., Hiding the remote for the TV when we would have remote learning for those folks in Red Wing that couldn't make it due to the weather. Marty on the other hand thought I was the teacher's pet, because I was the Work Study and helped our instructors with whatever they needed me to do.

We stopped by in November 2021 while visiting family in Winona, MN

Slowly though, as we went out as a group after class, we began to see each other in a new light. Marty said it began for him on Halloween when we were one of a few people who showed up in costume.

For me it changed when Marty showed up in class having shaved his head. When we all went out for drinks after class that night Marty had gotten there ahead of a lot of us, so he was sitting down already. As we went past him everyone rubbed his head and when I did, he looked up at me and when our eyes met that was it. It wasn't soon after that Tom, my friend from being on Plainview Ambulance, and I were going home after class, and we were talking about who liked who in class. He told me that there was someone who really liked me, and it was Marty. I told Tom that I had feelings towards Marty also.

I remember it vividly, as if it were just yesterday. Our paramedic class had stopped for break time. Kelly Goodnature and I were sitting in the second row towards the left of the classroom. We were talking about something that Laurie (our instructor) had just said, and then she went out to smoke.

That's when I heard "Charlotte?" I turned around, and Marty was sitting in behind me.
"Yes?" I answered, thinking that he just wanted to know something about the lecture.
"You look delicious."
"What?" I remember looking puzzled.
"You changed the color of your hair, and you look delicious."
Then he got up and walked out.
Leaving me there, speechless.

What the heck was happening? I had put my hair color back to as close to my original dark auburn as I could get (or the beautician had anyway), but not even my husband noticed.
And yet, here was this young man out of all the people in the world, who noticed.
And he said..."You look delicious."
That's why even to this day I call Marty my STD (Silver Toung'd Devil)
He has always had a way with me, still does!

There is no denying the fact that Marty enjoyed making fun of me, my naivete and my getting embarrassed by the raunchy jokes that are so much a part of being in EMS. Once such night, in March 1997 we had gone out after class, and we sat next to each other. Our knees touched and we both glanced at one another, and it was at this point that we knew we both had feelings for the other. But we both knew I was married, although the marriage had been over for years. My plan was to get through the Intensive Care Paramedicine Degree program, find a job and then go through with the divorce.

This is the night when we both realized that we liked each other.
Marty is laughing because he just embarrassed me.

In early April of 1997 we participated in a mock EMS drill. The scenario was that there were some patients that had escaped from the mental hospital, and it was up to the Sherrif's Posse to find us and take us back to the asylum. It began early on Sunday morning and since we had class all day long on Saturday Marty asked if I wanted to stay over at his apartment, so I did. He made spaghetti for dinner which I was delighted with. We watched Tin Cup before we went to sleep, me on the couch and he in his bed. We woke the next morning and headed out to the farm where we would be hiding at.

Marty was not going down without a fight. It took them awhile to get him in the car.

I am holding the mouse I found in the small outbuilding where I was hiding. It was what I used as a 'friend' who had to come into the ambulance with me. I wanted Charlie, pictured here, to do CPR on it before I would come peacefully.

When I got home from the mick call it become evident to me that I would need to change my plans for the divorce, as things as home became unbearable. So surprisingly to me once our medic class knew that I needed to find a place to live for a while they all got together and then came to me with their solution. One classmate, Connie, offered me a room in her house. She was single and had two daughters at home, but it was a great offer. She only had one bedroom for me to put all of my things in. I knew well enough that I needed to get everything out of the house in Plainview that I wanted to ever take with me. So, they told me the other part of their 'solution' and it was that I could put some items at Marty's apt. I still had to leave my two youngest children with their father, and we agreed that once I had graduated, was a paramedic and had a job, that they would then come live with me. It ripped me apart, but I had to stick to the plan for me to be able to care for them by myself.

On May 1st the Rochester boys, as we called them, showed up in Plainview, as did Marty. They moved everything that I was taking with me into Connie's and then my computer and a few other pieces of furniture to Marty's. I had taken the family van, which was just junk. It would barely make it up the really big hill to Connie's house. But for a few weeks, I made do.

I quickly found out that living at Connie's was not going to work. Her daughters fought like cats and dogs when she was gone, and she was gone all the time working for Winona Ambulance. It was impossible for me to study and sleep there. So, I began to stay at Marty's more and more, to do my work study for class and to have a quiet place to study and sleep. One evening after we had discussed our relationship, we decided that we'd just remain friends, after all I was quite older than he was, 17 years to be exact. But Marty was not to be trusted. He came over to the couch, sat down close to me and said, "Before we become 'just friends' I want to do one thing. He moved his fingers up into my hair, pulled me close and kissed me.

Here we are in our apartment 1997

Our first apt together, 125 E. 3rd St, Winona, MN
Outlined in blue. 2021

Three weeks later Marty told me he loved me. I was shocked. We had already decided that we would just have fun with each other until we got out of school. When I told my therapist about Marty and our age difference and that we were just going to live together through the end of school, and we had medic jobs. She laughed and said that I would be shocked at the relationships which work where the woman is much older than the man. I laughed, assuring her and myself that would not happen with us.

We continued to hide our relationship from our classmates as we didn't want to make it a big deal. We'd drive separately and we never sat next to one another in class. That all changed when we went to Fergus Falls to help the 1st class of Paramedics set to graduate in June of 1997 go through their practical stations. Marty and I drove together and checked into the hotel on Friday afternoon. I was registered in a room with 2 other women and Marty likewise with two guys. After the long drive up to Fergus Falls, we laid down in my room and took a nap before heading out to where our instructors and some of our classmates were camping. We awoke when one of the women came into the room after she checked into the hotel. Needless to say, she was dumbstruck and left the room very quickly. We drove out to the campground and as we walked up to the camp everyone was laughing. They all knew we were a couple.

Doc, one of the Rochester boys, took me for a motorcycle ride and talked to me much like a big brother making sure I was really sure about it all. I just told him the plan that we were going to live together while in school and until we found paramedic jobs. Three years later Doc would be a groomsman in our beautiful 2000 wedding.

Our lives as a couple began to take shape as the weeks went by. I bought my first car in June, a Toyota Celica which would later become a source of immense trouble. I had my kids every other weekend and we tried to always find fun things to do with them.

Here we are right after I bought my car

Here we are with my kids, Joe and Sarah, on Sugar Loaf overlooking Winona

In August I got a job as a Lab Tech for Mayo, working in the Baldwin Bldg. in Rochester, MN. I'd take the bus from and to Winona and it wasn't too long after that when Marty was hired as a Pharmacy Tech for St. Mary's Hospital so we both worked for the Mayo Clinic. Life was going well.

In August Marty surprised me with a dinner cruise down the Mississippi

We moved to St. Charles, MN in September so we would be halfway between Winona and Rochester. It was a very cute little one-bedroom apt. on Whitewater Ave. that suited us well while we were in school.

Here are some other photos from 1997

Going to work, we had the same evening hour shifts at the Mayo Clinic,
so we could go to work together

Practicing our dance moves.

We loved going out dancing. Marty's best friend Joel was the sound guy for a band, so we'd go out to hear the band and have a fun filled evening. We also enjoyed going to the Black Stallion in Winona and the Hot Fish Shop. It was actually at the Hot Fish Shop that the rest of our class, who had not gone to Fergus Falls, leanred that we were a couple. After watching us dancing it was very clear that we were an item.