Gail (Duerfeldt) and Allen Hinand, both '59

First year, fall, 1955, I was introduced to Allen by a mutual friend who had been active in both the churches (Butte and Spokane Valley) we came from - but, I was at that point dating a high school boyfriend now at the University of Washington

First year, winter, 1956, a new fraternity brother of Allen suggested he ask me out because, according to him, I was dating a loser in Seattle and I needed to know there were other possibilities out there (probably didn’t use the word “loser” in those days)

So, almost immediately (as he tells it), Allen approached me on a Wednesday and asked me out for Vespers Sunday evening.  I told him I was dating someone at the University of Washington.  He said, “well, don’t be by Sunday night”!  As it turned out, said boyfriend was coming down to McMinnville for the weekend.  All of a sudden said boyfriend looked less appealing and, furthermore,  Allen was the third young man at Linfield who had shown an interest in me.  By 4 PM on Sunday I had bid adieu to my former high school boyfriend, literally and emotionally, as he boarded the bus back to Seattle.

Sunday evening, just prior to Vespers, Allen showed up at the door of Failing Hall, having not communicated with me since the Wednesday before.  As I learned was typical behavior for him, he assumed I would be ready and waiting for what we called a date in those days. Several of our classmates were shocked, to say the least, when we appeared together for Vespers .

And we have been “attending Vespers together” as it were, ever since. Never turning back, we went from dating to lust to love to marriage (just before our junior year), graduated on time inn 1959, and moved to Boston that fall for graduate school with a 10 month old in the back seat of a 1950 Chevrolet. We have been together for the almost 60 years since (and therin lies another story or two).