This Geneseo love story feature was originally featured in the Scene alumni magazine. What's your Geneseo love story? Share it with us.
Carl Swanson and Shirley Phelps Swanson met in speech class.
“She was pretty. Cheerful. A live wire,” says Carl.
They got along from “get-go,” and when Carl asked Shirley out, he knew she would say yes. Often they went to school dances, perfecting their jitterbug and double-time.
They took extra classes and a session of summer school to graduate early in 1951 – to get married sooner.
“We had fun together and we liked each other, and we’re still trying it out,” jokes Carl.
They each said “I do” four days after graduation.
“It was the right choice,” says Shirley.
This year, they’ll have been married for 65 years, raising four kids and welcoming grandkids, through career changes and the trials and joys that come with sharing their lives together.
Carl was the first Geneseo graduate to immediately teach college, as an art instructor in Vermont. They would later spend 30 years in New Jersey, he working in government for a time and Shirley helping kids as a speech therapist and teacher.
When Carl was unemployed for some time in the 1980s, they relied entirely on Shirley’s salary. “That was a big deal in our lives,” remembers Carl. “But we made it.”
Friendship and a sense of humor, says Shirley, have proven to be most important in sticking together, and being happy.
Now retired and living in Michigan closer to family, the Swansons returned in June for reunion, to reunite with old friends and revisit the college where they met.
“We are always so proud that Geneseo is where we came from,” says Carl.