DNA Notes of Life

DNA: Tell us how you met and courted back in the day before the Internet and mobile phones… We hear that you were setup by a mutual friend.

Don: Yes, she was one of my youth group leaders and Adrienne knew her at teachers’ college. I’d go to see her and she’d bring out this photo album of their overseas trip and tell me about Adrienne. Then she invited me and another friend to a holiday at Adrienne’s.

Adrienne: I was on school holidays so we hung out, visited Don’s old hometown and talked and talked. Then went to Adelaide and a concert and by the time we had to part we both knew we’d met ‘The One’.

Don: We lived 8 hours apart then. We didn’t see each other for a whole term.

Adrienne: Which was 13 weeks in those days. We wrote each other a letter a week (and I resisted the urge to correct his spelling and punctuation!) No mobile phones or email. I didn’t have a phone at my house, so snail mail was it.

Don: We talked probably twice on the phone in seven months but the phone was in her principal’s office so not very private!

Adrienne: I think that writing was good for us. There are a lot of things you think about to write, that you don’t necessarily say face to face. We got to know each other quite deeply. We’ve kept all those letters. Tied in red ribbon, too We met in May, then again in September and then several times during the last school term by meeting in Adelaide which was sort of half way.

Don: I asked Adrienne to marry me a few days before Christmas when we were walking around Dad’s farm- no romantic dinner in a fancy restaurant or anything- but she said, ‘Yes’.

Adrienne: Actually he didn’t really ask me to marry him– he said, “If I was to ask you to marry me, what would you say?”  I said, “Yes” but he didn’t say any more so we just kissed and that was that. I found out years later that my Dad proposed to my Mum with the same words, too!

We announced our engagement on my birthday with a notice in the Advertiser paper (like was the way back then) and got married in August in my home church- eight months courtship and eight months engagement.