With another sweater design in the wings, off I went to the family archives in search of its name, a familiar drill by now. As I've mentioned before, Marlene saved everything, and it's during these name hunting episodes that I often find myself – for better or for worse – on trips down memory lane. This time, I ventured into the dreaded card box. And this time, I finally took the time to see what exactly I had there.
Diving in, I found lots of correspondence – between my mum and her girlfriends, from her brother Sonny, thank you letters from great aunt Hilda, cards from my grandmother Mildred to my newly married parents, congratulations on my birth, some of my childhood artwork – all very fun to be sure – but most delightful to me, as I categorized each set and sorted by year, was realizing that my parents shared valentines every year of their 4-plus decades together. A sampling follows.
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
And this was the last. Dad died the following year.
1995
It's nice to know, amidst all the ups and downs there most surely were in their lives over the years, that the backdrop was this.
Paying homage to their romance, Be Mine will be the name of my next sweater design – a September valentine delivery. I'll post and tweet upon its release.
Update – Be Mine published 9/20/2017