A is for About My Parents. First of 26 posts in the April 2024 Blogging From #AtoZChallenge. Theme: My Life: The Prequel (in Snapshots) adding my parents’ stories to the family history mix. Please join me on the journey.
By my calculations, my parents met some time in 1946 once my dad, Norman J. Charboneau, was discharged from the Navy after WWII.
He had completed two years of college at Clarkson Tech (now Clarkson U.) in Potsdam, N.Y., before he was called up — so when his service was over, he resumed his electrical engineering studies.
Meanwhile, my mom, Peg Laurence, was attending Potsdam Teachers College (now SUNY Potsdam) as a music educator and piano major. Although she was two years younger than Dad, my parents’ college years ended up overlapping just in time for them to meet and fall in love.
Traditional college years
My parents’ college years in the Forties were more traditional than mine in the Sixties. There were bucolic campuses, sororities and fraternities, an annual Ice Carnival, and prom-like dances with strict curfews punctuating their career-oriented studies.
Yet service members like my dad were undoubtedly happy to have survived WWII to return to their lives — and I’m sure young women like my mom were relieved to welcome them back. Amid this collective sigh of relief, family-minded students like my parents began to find one another.
I always wondered how my mom, a student of the arts, and my dad, a slide-rule toting engineer, became attracted to one another. But apart from their callings, they actually had much in common.
The arts, engineering, and common interests
Both grew up in upstate New York — my dad in Otter Lake and my mom in Gloversville — which gave them cultural compatibility, including the wise-cracking sense of humor characteristic of the region.
My parents also had good sized extended families, as well as networks of friends, and enjoyed socializing on their own and as a couple. They were doers and joiners, too — from the school board and PTA to their respective music and engineering professional associations.
Plus, outside of work my dad dabbled in the arts himself — joining a writing group at one of his jobs and pursuing a love of photography that began in his youth. (As a retiree, he even wrote a semi-autobiographical mystery book that I’ll be quoting from during this series.)
And once we children came along — five in total — we added to the fun and gave my parents more in common than they bargained for! So let’s learn more about my folks during this A to Z challenge.
Fair warning: I’ll be jumping around (not in chronological order) to share snapshots from my parents’ lives to keep with the A to Z theme. Here’s hoping each post can stand on its own so the timeline doesn’t get too confusing.
Up next, B is for Beer on Tap: My Dad’s Bar Tending Gig. Please stop back!
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