Ann and Jim Callahan of Freeman Ridge will celebrate their 70 wedding anniversary in December. They were married on Dec. 20, 1953, at the Congregational Christian Church in Manson, Ind. Their early age marriage was totally planned and very unusual for the norms in their era.
The Early Chronological Timing of Events Leading to Their Achievement
They first met at Ann’s small rural school when Jim and his parents moved there from nearby Frankfort, Ind. At that time, Ann was a junior, age 16 and Jim was a sophomore, age 15. There were many early mutual attractions between the couple. Jim was too young for a drivers license. No problem as Ann’s father innocently trusted and permitted Ann to drive his car for their dating.
By Ann’s senior and Jim’s junior year in high school they were in love with plans to eventually marry. By the following summer plans were mutual between the two who were to temporarily separate in the fall as Jim would be finishing with his senior year in high school while Ann would be planning to attend Purdue in nearby West Lafayette, Indiana.
In the fall Ann went to Purdue to live her first year in Dumhe Hall. Her folks were advocates of her pledging to sorority living. Eventually, she attended many sorority pledge activities, but never failed to willingly volunteer information about her love of her younger Jim back home in high school. This key information caused her to lose most of her favorite choices for sorority house living. She did finally choose Zeta Tau Alpha to honor her mother’s legacy (Purdue 1931). Meanwhile, back home Jim finished his senior year high school while working 40-80 hours at night and on weekends for a local veterinarian. The D.V.M. also used his own professional skills to get Jim enrolled for his first year at the University of Illinois as a veterinary school had not been established at Purdue.
The total year was hectic for the couple as Jim was trying to see Ann while working after high school every night plus weekends. Sometimes he slept while driving and sometimes he was even very late for a date due to his D.V.M. assistant work responsibilities. This problem was solved by Ann as she deducted to leave her lower front window slightly open. This was in order to listen for the familiar sound of his car engine along with his muted voice occurring during his late arrivals.
The next fall they tearfully parted as Jim’s parents took them to Champaign to see them tearfully depart and returned Ann to lodging at the ZTA sorority at Purdue. .They managed some joyful fall weekends by bus, but they were always too brief. Eventually Jim felt highly motivated to retrieved his 1951 Plymouth from back home to expedite extra time for them to be together on weekends.
By Ann’s 19th birthday on April 3rd they met at her sorority pinning ceremony for then- engagement with plans to marry at the Christmas break. They married that December 20,1953 at the Manson, Indiana Congregational Church and drove to Palentine near Chicago to utilize a free offer of her uncle’s estate while he was in Florida. They took trains most days to Chicago and even celebrated one night at the Chez Peree with $20 from her father. They finished Christmas break at her parents home back in Frankfort while the parents were in Florida.
They rejoined the next year in a small thirty-eight foot mobile home including the hitch. They both attended the University of Illinois. Ann’s final grandparent passed in August 1954 of that same year in Frankfort, and this had another great impact on their plans.
They had already decided together to give up D.V. M. for a better family life. They quickly abandoned the trailer for the deceased granddads home on a farm near Frankfort for the balance of their undergraduate years. Jim worked nights on the farm and the couple drove to Purdue each day for classes. Ann was first to graduate in 1956. By this time they had been married three years. She even planned and was seven months pregnant when Kevin was bom on August 10, 1956. She slept a lot that spring semester, but Jim wrote her papers and she managed to promote enough sympathy from professors to be Distinguished for the semester.
Jim graduated in the next June, 1957 to join the Father in law on the large commercial farm.
The farm did prove to be an excellent early environment for their young son and daughter, Maureen born five years later.
The couple eventually felt financial necessity to moved on from the farm’s excellent social status and extensive credit line for the more realistic world and to join the corporate world to live from Wisconsin to Florida and even had a last assignment in central Mexico.
They retired to Brown County in 1991 to continue to conclude their years in their blissful and fulfilling marriage. They were also close to one living mother, daughter and her two children. The retirement was not that different as they always believed work was good, but it did slow their hobbies as well as their overall philosophy to seeing all they could see, doing all they could do, and being all they could be. Now they could control even more of their choices.
They immediately found Brown County civic work to be stimulating in it’s never ending demand for volunteers with the normal standards of mostly unstructured, unregulated, unpaid and frequently even under qualified modes. They contributed in many ways by helping start the B.C.C.F., the Brown County Literacy Coalition, and contributing to the Lions as well as Nashville United Methodist Church. They enjoyed the challenges and remained a team in every activity of their married lives.
They also found more time to spend with Jim’s strange heritage of the Melungeons of East Tennessee as they trekked the remote hills and “hollers” which led to two published books, many free lectures and promotional book fairs throughout the Southeast.
They also planned lots of retirement time for extensive world travel to third world countries in conjunction with winters in Padre Island and South Florida to be nearer their son and his two children, one who eventually married. Both stayed in Florida after their school years. The daughter and her two children with grandchildren moved back north after school and marriage to remain near them in the north.
