Happy Anniversary Florence and Sidney

 

Sidney Schwartz's photo album/scrapbook

Today is my parents’ anniversary – they were married 68 years ago. So here is their story, in honor of their special day.

 

When Florence Gold and Sidney Schwartz were teenagers, they lived in the same apartment building on Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn, New York. Mom liked telling the story that when she saw Dad in the building, she said “I’m going to marry him one day!”. They began dating in 1946 when she was 15 and Dad was 17.

 According to the photo album/scrapbook Dad made, the two of them spent time at nearby Coney Island and Prospect Park in 1946 and 1947 and they took trips to upstate NY and Washington DC in 1948.

 

 

Then, as Dad writes in the scrapbook, “the little-big step”:

 



Possible engagement portrait, 1949

In 1949 there was a trip to Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey and 1950 they took another trip to DC with friends.

At last, they were married on February 10, 1951.

 

 A honeymoon in Miami Beach, Florida, followed.

 

Life as a married couple began with Sidney’s service in the Army. They were together in El Paso, Texas most of 1952 where Sidney was stationed at Ft Bliss. By then (September 1952), Florence was pregnant with her first child. They were back in Brooklyn when baby Matty was born in January 1953, then they were apart for a brief time while Sidney was stationed in San Francisco where he was discharged from the Army at the end of 1953.

 

Florence and Sidney relocated to Maryland where they had another son and a daughter. Sidney spent most of his career at the Government Printing Office in Washington DC, working the night shift, while Florence worked part-time as a bookkeeper at John Ligon in Bethesda.

 

Family portrait 1967

 

Over the years, they had many friends with whom they enjoyed playing bridge (including duplicate bridge), dining, and traveling. Florence and Sidney loved to travel -- their most memorable trips together were to Hawaii for their 25^th anniversary and to London.

 

Florence and Sidney were married for 38 years, till Florence’s death from breast cancer December 7, 1989 at the age of 58.