Gary and Pauline had their first date in 1947-48 and went steady, during their last two years at Leavenworth Senior High School in Leavenworth, Kansas. They attended all the athletic events and school dances together. They also attended the same church and participated in all of the church activities together, which included Sunday School, Christian Youth Fellowship meetings, and other youth activities such as skating, swimming, and dancing parties, and Christmas caroling. Gary was President of C.Y.F. two years in a row (1948-49) and, as such, gave the sermon in church on Youth Sunday each of those two years.
In his senior year of high school, when she was a junior, they attended the Junior-Senior Prom and the R.O.T.C. Cadet Hop together. Gary called their theme song "A Tree in the Meadow," which was one of the most popular songs at that time.
After graduation, they broke-up, because they were going in two different directions to college. Pauline and her mother moved to Enid, Oklahoma, where she completed the requirements for high school graduation, while attending Phillips University. Gary graduated from Emporia State University in 1954 with a B.S.Ed. degree and from the University of Kansas in 1963 with a M.Ed. degree. He was a teacher and principal before retiring in 1990. Eventually, they each married someone else and had separate families. Fifty years later, after they were both widowed, they were reunited and married. Their two family combined, the Woodwards and the Freeds, consists of 41 members altogether. About the only time they can all gather together at the same time is Thanksgiving Day.
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