By DEB WUETHRICH
On August 17, a Tecumseh couple will celebrate a remarkable milestone anniversary — 75 years of marriage. Albert (Al) and Judith (Judy) Schraeder were married at the United Church of Christ in Ann Arbor in 1934.
Each day, Al, 95, drives from his home at Cambrian Assisted Living where he has resided for about a year, to Herrick Manor, where Judy, 94, has lived for four years because of the level of medical care she requires. The couple recently reflected on their 75 years together.
“Our acquaintance actually goes back farther than that,” said Al, indicating that they have known each other since childhood.
“I’ll tell you what he won’t tell you,” said Judy, her eyes twinkling. “We lived in an apartment in his family’s house (in Ypsilanti) and I used to chase him on the way to school and could never catch him.” She was eight and he was nine. “One day, I said, ‘Al, one of these days, I’m going to catch you,’ and see, I did.”
Al said in those days he hadn’t yet come to appreciate girls. “Now later, that’s another story,” he said.
The couple did get reacquainted about the time that Al was in college and Judy was finishing high school and preparing to become a nursing student and they started to date. When asked what they liked to do on a date back in the 1930s, Judy said, “park,” and Al just smiled. “I think it was in a Ford, wasn’t it?” she asked her long-time companion.
One event in their courtship that they remember clearly was a visit to the World’s Fair in Chicago which had the theme, “A Century of Progress.” Al navigated a yacht from Detroit to Chicago for the Sea Scouts, a branch of Boy Scouting, he said, and Judy drove to the exposition with friends. They met up there, and wanted to get married.
