One Boy, One Girl…One Love, One Life…
A Tribute to the Marriage of Janet and Jerald Fessler
-By: Brittany (Fessler) Jungck
The other day I was sitting in my living room, looking fondly on the rosy cheeks of my newborn son, and I started thinking about destiny. How many things in life are meant to be? When anyone becomes a parent, he/she realizes how mesmerizing it can be, and how powerful love and life truly are. Many wonderful things came together to bring me my beautiful son. Six and a half years ago, I fell in love with a sixteen year old boy, and my life changed forever, but if it hadn’t been for the love of others, I wouldn’t even exist.
Janet and Jerald Fessler were married fifty-one years ago. Their love is an epic tale of butterflies and loyalty, of dreams and wishes, of trials and victories. One day, a blond haired boy fell in love with a girl with doe eyes and chocolate pigtails, and the world stopped for a moment. The stars aligned and these two wildly beating hearts created magic. A few years later, the same blond boy, now nineteen, proposed to the seventeen-year-old girl, who had lost her pigtails but still had the same light in her eyes and love in her heart for her sweet boy, son of a gentle Swede. On December 18, 1954, they promised each other forever in a small, Rippey church, with minimal flourishes and maximum devotion.
This promise has been one for the storybooks. In an era of broken hearts and lost dreams, their love story is inspirational for us all. Everyone around them can see their dedication to each other, and they have stood the tests of time. They have lived with little, and struggled for more. They have grieved together, and celebrated as one. They have created a symbol for true love and commitment that inspires everyone they meet.
I have been aware of this magic for as long as I can remember. There has never been a time in my life, when my grandparents were separate entities. Their souls have always been inextricably connected, forever thinking of one another: Grandma making Grandpa’s favorite dinners, Grandpa subtly brushing her arm while he helps her dry the dishes. This love, that so many people can easily recognize, has done more than fill their hearts with joy; it has created a family.
Three kids (one daughter-in-law and one son-in-law), seven grandkids (and one grandson- in- law), and one great grandbaby have all sprung from this eternal bond. On the 23rd, fourteen people will join the couple at the Fessler Farm to share in this bounty of love; fourteen people who would not be there if one boy hadn’t married one girl, fifty-one, sweet years ago.
Grandma & Grandpa’s wedding
On a cruise
