B.F. Prange Family

My Romance
by Cordy Prange

How did I meet my lover of almost 53 years? Bruno was a student at Concordia Seminary, Springfield, Ill. In order to earn enough to go back to the seminary for another year he worked for a farmer, Wm. Durdel, who was a member in the congregation in Manito. I don't remember who introduced us. Maybe nobody did, and I'm not certain if it was love at first sight. Romance didn't blossom the first year. But he came back to see me or did he need money? Perhaps both were true.

After the second year it was more than friendship. We saw each other often. Every time he came to see me we played Rook, and he brought some peppermint candy.

He didn't come back to Manito after two years to work on the farm. He stayed in Springfield for the summer and did odd jobs such as mowing lawns, washing walls and windows, work at the State Fair, etc. 

His headquarters were with a school teacher, Miss Barnes. Tekla and I stayed with her when we attended the Walther League fall convention. Eli Nopola and Bruno rented a car so we would have transportation. There was some misunderstanding about the length of time they could keep the car. We had intended to use that car all day Sunday but the rental company came to the seminary on Sunday morning, checking on the boys [and] demanding an explanation. I don't know how we got around the rest of the time that we were there.

Tekla reminded me of something that happened the night before our wedding. Mama fixed the old schoolhouse to house the men in our wedding party--Carl Prange, Emil Winkler, and Ralph Radke. The girls of the wedding party--Tekla, Rhoda Flachsbart Schaeffer, and Pauline Laesch Christiansen--thought they would have some fun. They went over to the school and upset their beds. Mama wasn't too happy about that. The girls got the worst end. They got locked in the school room. Tekla doesn't remember how they got out. Bruno was kidnapped at the charivari [or shivaree] and made to walk back some distance. We were happily reunited. We daughters didn't realize how much work our parents had planning and working for these weddings.

Our honeymoon was spent with the cousins in Bloomington, Ill., after which we took a train to Chicago. Bruno was a missionary-at-large, canvassing with four other graduates in areas around Chicago. We lived in a utility apartment in Maywood, Ill. A month later he was assigned to a preaching station in Joliet where we lived from 1931 until 1935.